Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-11-21-Speech-3-077-000"
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"en.20121121.4.3-077-000"2
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"Mr President, first I would like to thank Members of this House for this debate. I think it has shown very clearly that you really represent European citizens. We participated in many rounds of negotiations. It is not only the two major EU institutions which support the proposal for a modern and a good European budget, but also scientists, students, businessmen and industrialists support a modern European budget. Therefore I think the debate today was very important because it reconfirms this attitude.
With regard to the issue of pensions, the first thing to say is that EU officials are paying the highest contribution rates in Europe and they are, of course, paying towards their pensions in a system which was developed and proposed by the Member States. They are paying the pensions into the EU budget under the promise that when they reach pensionable age they will get their pension. If there were a pension fund – it was abolished by the Member States – today we would have a pension fund of EUR 35 billion to cover future pensions.
With regard to the argument that we did not react to austerity, here again I would like to remind Members that, since 2009, the Commission has followed zero growth with regard to staffing. How have we reacted to austerity? We continued with a proposal of a five % cut with a staff which will have to cover this cut by longer working hours – which would be among the longest in the European Union – without a pay adjustment. We have reacted by introducing the possibility for possibly the longest working life in the EU, namely introducing a pension age of 65 with the possibility to work to 67 and the European Parliament is suggesting 70. Is this not – I would say – a reaction to austerity? I think it is.
I know that we are under time constraints, so allow me to conclude by saying that we very much value your support. We are of course ready to engage and we will look for the compromise. But you will also understand that we have to fight for Europe, for the citizens and for a good modern EU budget.
Please allow me to react to some of the myths, which I heard again this morning and which are so misleading and so damaging to the European image.
Firstly, the notion that national budgets are being cut. There are cuts only in the five Member States which are on the programme. So what is being cut in the Member States? Excessive deficits. I think we have to speak about the figures but, to be fair to each other, we have to use them correctly. I think that Mr Böge in his statement was very precise about that. The budgets in 22 Member States are actually growing.
If we look at budget developments over the longer period, from 2000 to 2011, only two Member States have slower-growing budgets than the EU budget. If we take the example of the UK, in that case the budget grew twice as fast as the budget of the European Union. And let us remind ourselves that in 2000 there were only 15 of us. Now we are 27 and very soon we will be 28.
Then of course there is the issue of errors. I think that it is very important that we do not confuse errors with fraud or abuse. Only 0.2 % of the EU budget is actually investigated and you know very well that the Commission has clean books and a clean budget. Where is there a problem? With improper spending in the Member States.
Therefore I am very glad that yesterday in the General Affairs Council we approved the new approach to the way in which we control and spend the EU budget. We are introducing the possibility of net corrections, so I believe that we should also increase the discipline in how the money is spent.
With regard to some of the ridiculous projects which have been mentioned here, let us not assume that they are automatically paid for. More than EUR 1.5 billion worth of projects are very carefully studied and we do not pay for anything which is not in accordance with EU laws and EU rules.
With regard to the EU staff – and I have had quite intense discussions on this over the last couple of weeks – we have 55 000 EU officials, which include those in the Council, the European Parliament, the Commission, the Court of Justice, the European External Action Service, delegations abroad, agencies and the two Committees we have in Brussels. So how does this compare with the administrations abroad? They are comparable with the City Council in Birmingham or the City Council of Paris.
How can we compare the size of the staff of the Commission? I had a discussion on this yesterday with my British friends. One department in the UK, the Department for Public Works and Pensions, is three times bigger than the whole Commission with 98 000 people. Of course we can distinguish the roles of the civil servants in this or that institution, but the fact is that this is one department for one country and we have a Commission which has to serve, already now, 28 countries. Therefore I think we have to keep the figures in proportion."@en1
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