Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-05-18-Speech-2-022"
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"en.20100518.5.2-022"2
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"Madam President, Parliament’s draft budget for 2011 is EUR 1.7 billion. That is equivalent to EUR 2.3 million per MEP per year, EUR 200 000 per month and a staggering EUR 6 400 per MEP per day; and there are 736 MEPs in this House.
Madam President, EUR 6 400 is a huge amount of money. I can think of a hundred things it would be better spent on than this puppetry. Most importantly, however, citizens themselves must be able to take such decisions. Let us shut up shop in Brussels, Luxembourg and, primarily, Strasbourg today. Let us simply clear everyone out of the buildings, lock the door, throw away the key and give that EUR 1.7 billion back to the citizens who have earned it with their own blood, sweat and tears.
Each Member of this House should have to get up and go to bed every day with the thought that he or she will cost, or has cost, the taxpayer EUR 6 400 that day. Each Member must also see it as his or her duty to bring that amount down every day, as everything that is spent on nonsense here is taxpayers’ money that has been produced by citizens through enormously hard work.
That is what should happen, but it does not. In this House, more is always better. Via handshakes, like-knows-like, shadowy deals in back rooms, tens of millions are added to the budget. The elite decides, and the public coughs up. Everyone should think about this at night before going to sleep, and I would call on everyone to do so tonight: to ask him or herself, ‘have I cost EUR 6 400?’ If they do not do so, they should be deeply ashamed, as they are worth nothing as MEPs."@en1
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