Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-04-26-Speech-3-161"
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"en.20060426.15.3-161"2
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".
Mr President, Mr Vice-President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to start by saying that I was somewhat surprised that there seems to have been enough time for so many important things like one-minute speeches, while the question of whether European taxpayers' money is being spent properly is being dealt with around the evening suspension.
Secondly, I would have been happy if I could have reported today, like the rapporteur on the Commission's budget, that Parliament's authorities had done everything properly, and that we just had a few problems because many of the positions created in connection with the enlargement had not been filled, because we had the highest non-implementation rate, in other words transfers, ever seen in the history of Parliament's budget, and a few other issues.
In the last few days, however, a story has come to light that clearly needs to be brought up here because of its peculiarities. I do think it is wise that we are not going to discharge Parliament's budget at the present. However, I would also make it quite clear that I find it regrettable that the services of Parliament have not authorised a procedure that would have made it possible to explain why we are not discharging it. I think that what this Parliament's Legal Service delivered this afternoon in the Committee on Budgetary Control, against the interests of the Members – and, I might add, Mr Vice-President, against the interests of the Bureau – was unacceptable. It is an unacceptable situation, and that alone requires special consideration.
There is something else that is equally unacceptable. We need to look into whether the city of Strasbourg, in providing a property on which a Dutch pension fund has constructed a building, has concluded a rental agreement with us for a sum significantly different from the sum that it pays to the pension fund – and not to the detriment of Strasbourg, but to its benefit. To be absolutely clear, this is not about the issue of having the seat of Parliament in Strasbourg – that is laid down in the Treaties – but about whether it is really the purpose of such a sub-letting situation that, in the rent we are paying to the city of Strasbourg, we are giving a direct subsidy – for that is exactly what it would be – to the city's budget. Given that this agreement was not just signed yesterday but, if the information I currently have is correct, has been in place since 1980, we also need to look into the issue of who in this House already knew about the situation in the past and who failed to protect the interests of European tax-payers in this connection by concluding the rental agreement directly with the pension fund. If this had been done, we would have been able to rent the building more cheaply. If, therefore, anyone in this House knew about this and did not act in the interests of European tax-payers, that is worthy of particular scrutiny. That is exactly what we are going to do together.
Therefore, I can really only request – it is just a request at the moment, though the Rules of Procedure provide other options for the later procedure – that the administration provide all the information it has at its disposal. I can also only request the city of Strasbourg to provide all the information it has and to cooperate very closely with Parliament on this matter. If it does not do so, and if the debate on this is used only as a pretext for arguing that the European Parliament is looking for a good opportunity to leave Strasbourg for good, then the city of Strasbourg itself will have contributed to an event that it did not want to occur.
That is really where my call is coming from – I read the city of Strasbourg's press release from this afternoon, and, from what I understood of it with my rudimentary French, this is not the kind of cooperation I have in mind. The city of Strasbourg is already profiting from the European Parliament without needing such payments. That is why I am asking them to cooperate with us to clear up the matter: it is the only way that we will be able to act in the interests of tax-payers, and we will then be able to draw the correct conclusions I therefore regret – although I should like to thank everyone who worked with me in preparing the report, the services, the Committee Secretariat and my fellow Members – that I have to recommend that you vote against the report tomorrow and do not give discharge in respect of the budget, so that we can look seriously into all the matters I have mentioned."@en1
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