Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/1999-10-28-Speech-4-092"
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"en.19991028.2.4-092"2
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"Mr President, I voted against the proposed budget of the European Parliament for the year 2000, as it seemed to lack rigour, unlike the Council proposal.
In this respect, I would like to draw attention to two specific points, which I think are extremely indicative of the spirit and the methods which predominate within the Union’s institutions. Firstly, the stubbornness with which the European Parliament, despite all the regulations in force, persists in seeking to hand the taxpayers’ money over to so-called European political parties. The Council of Amsterdam which signed and approved the Treaty of the same name had looked into this question and explicitly refused to recognise the existence of European political parties, and still less to finance them from public funds. We must therefore refer back to the current edition of Article 191 of the Treaty, formerly Article 138A, which only mentions, in a rather vague way, the action of political parties, I quote, “at European level”, which is a very different matter, or so the Amsterdam Council and the Treaty intended it at any rate, from the idea of a “European political party” strictly speaking.
So, in the Parliament budget, under Category 3710, we are surprised to read an entry relating to contributions to European political parties, with an explanation to the effect that the Commission is shortly to present a statute for European political parties.
Such a brief reference and yet it contains three instances of irregularity. There is no European political party, there is no provision for the allocation of public funds to them, and the Commission has no right to prepare a statute of this type, which is not in accordance with the Treaty. In doing this, the European Parliament is moving its pawns in an illegal manner. Admittedly, for the moment no appropriations have been allocated to this item, but, even so – and this is my second point – it has set aside an enormous appropriation, of EUR 60 million, in a reserve for the Members’ Statute, which is rather mysterious, since the statute does not yet exist and, in any case, even if such a Members’ Statute were to be adopted, it would certainly not apply within the present term of office.
These two problems, apparently unrelated, lead me to draw a common conclusion. As recently as last year, the Court of Justice of the European Communities severely reprimanded the Commission for making budget expenditure commitments without a legal basis, with the collusion of the European Parliament. I observe that these practices are continuing and even getting worse, since now the European Parliament itself is taking a direct part in it. Thus the old European rule is still being applied here: every base act is permitted as long as it contributes to the construction of a federal Europe."@en1
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