Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-04-05-Speech-2-381-000"
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"en.20110405.19.2-381-000"2
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"Madam President, I would first of all like to pay tribute to the rapporteur for the way in which he has approached this budget and for his recognition that Parliament should avoid large increases in its spending for 2012. This is particularly appropriate as we know that the Council intends to cut its budget by 4%, the Commission intends to increase its budget by only 1%, the Committee of the Regions by around 2.9% and the Economic and Social Committee by an even smaller amount.
I believe that the initial suggestion of 5.2% made by the Bureau was far too high. Reducing the increase to 2.3% is therefore progress. It is in fact a cut of about 0.5% in real terms. Personally, I would have liked to have seen an even smaller increase. In the future, I believe we should produce a plan to identify savings in Parliament’s budget.
However, we should recognise that savings have been made. I welcome the savings made on the Added-Value Assessment Unit – which will save us around EUR 1.3 million – the savings on information campaigns, buildings policy and stationery and on the proposal to reduce the contingency reserve by around EUR 3 million. These all equate to real savings of around EUR 13.7 billion, in addition to the deferred spending on Lisbon and enlargement. As I said, I believe that further savings could have been made, but we have at least found some savings.
Finally, could I also raise two important outstanding issues? Firstly, on the suggestion that the EUR 100 million from unallocated margins in Heading 5 should go to youth policy, as outlined by the rapporteur: along with other groups, we have said in Amendment 7 that this transfer could be considered but only in line with the priorities in the general 2012 budget. This will therefore need discussion before a decision can be made on whether it should be done and where the money should go – in other words, where the money would be spent if that transfer takes place. It is far too soon for us to commit ourselves to that.
Secondly, there is the issue of the House of European History. It would be a good idea if we had plenty of money, but I believe that now is not the time. We need a proper business plan and we need it to go through the proper parliamentary procedure, perhaps through the normal budget process later this year, so that Members can have their say and give their views on this project. On this issue, I believe it is important that Parliament, as on other issues, should be seen to be taking the right decisions on our own budget. Our own budget is important and we have to be seen to be making sure that we take the right decisions for the public."@en1
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