Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2013-02-05-Speech-2-400-000"
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"en.20130205.19.2-400-000"2
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"Mr President, I was the rapporteur for the 2013 Other Sections budget so I know what a difficult task Ms Hohlmeier has. She certainly will not be able to please everybody, but I did want to congratulate her on the report she has presented today. The other institutions are very important in our discussions on the budget but like other colleagues I wanted to concentrate today on Parliament’s own budget.
I think the rapporteur is right to point out that we have made some efforts in the past to make some savings in Parliament. We have frozen Members’ allowances, we have cut the travel budget by 5%, we have made large savings in interpretation and translation – and I know from comments from some Members that a number of them are not happy with the cuts we have made already.
I know that we have to achieve a right balance, a balance between making savings and ensuring that Parliament runs effectively. Therefore I welcome the greater focus in the future on long-term structural savings.
These structural savings, I believe, can help us become more effective and, at the same time, perhaps identify savings as well. I know the joint working group which has been set up between the Committee on Budgets, and the Bureau has already been looking, with help from the Secretary-General, at possible long-term structural savings. These include: translation and interpretation; working much more closely with other institutions such as the Committee of the Regions and the European Economic and Social Committee; more working on videoconferencing and e-meetings; buildings policy; and the number of this Parliament’s working weeks, because we meet for twice as long as many other parliaments including the Bundestag. No doubt there will be many other ideas where we can make some savings in the future by looking at our structures.
My final point would be that this is a big issue. This is a big issue which will affect the impact this Parliament has and the effectiveness of individual Members as well, so therefore I believe we should have a much wider debate. I would welcome, perhaps, a discussion in the Committee on Budgets in the first instance on what possible structural changes and savings we can make in the future."@en1
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