Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-10-23-Speech-2-232"
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"en.20071023.23.2-232"2
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"To begin with I would like to thank both rapporteurs. My thanks to Mr Itälä for over eight months of cooperation on the issue of the draft general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2008. Over the last four years the institutions’ budget has increased by almost 18%, chiefly as a result of enlargement. In the future this budget will not grow at such a rate. If we want to make the institutions more efficient, we need to improve the cooperation between them. I am glad that the fears of risks associated with such cooperation have not come true.
On the one hand, we have been trying to ensure that all the tasks that the citizens expect the institutions to fulfil will be fulfilled. On the other hand, we have been trying to ensure effective use of the funds. When allocating the European Parliament’s budget, the most important thing for us is to concentrate, both now and in the future, on our main role and priority: improving the legislative process. Issues that are not related to this have to be reduced in the budget to an absolute minimum. We are well on the way to achieving that.
Ladies and gentlemen, back in March we said that you need to have better information on all the resources and materials at your disposal, so that you can work in a responsible and efficient manner. We are therefore calling for the creation of a knowledge management system that will enable the Members to work in an effective manner, using all documents.
Ladies and gentlemen, you want to prove to the voters that you manage their funds responsibly. However, sometimes we do not have documents available in even the most common languages. There are extraordinary committee meetings for which new resources are needed. We need to improve flexibility in this area. Spending on buildings accounts for a large portion of the institutions’ budget: we should therefore keep a close eye on this in the future. In the past, there were instances where European institutions bought or leased property for prices above the market value. In the future we want closer attention to be paid to all aspects of purchasing, leasing and renovation. Our aim is to lower costs and ensure flexibility. We want to avoid cartels and monopolies.
Our next priority is to provide better information to the citizens of the European Union. We have thus decided to strengthen this area by helping regional and local media. Ladies and gentlemen, we want to continue to make the institutions operate more efficiently. The reports we receive about their activities must be more informative. These reports should clearly indicate whether or not the targets have been reached. I welcome the method used by the institutions to prepare the budget with the help of inflation coefficients as well as on the basis of what is really needed. In conclusion, I want to thank the rapporteur because we have managed, by way of a number of difficult debates, to reach a good compromise that will lead to better use of European taxpayers’ money."@en1
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