Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-03-15-Speech-4-223"

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"Mr President, I believe that this is the first time that the debate on assistants to Members of the European Parliament has had the honour of being discussed in the open, in other words, in a plenary sitting. I therefore wish to begin by welcoming in particular the initiative presented here by our colleague, Mr Rocard, to bring into the open a debate which must be conducted with the utmost transparency. Ladies and gentlemen, from a personal point of view, I would even argue for a common statute for parliamentary assistants based on the categories currently laid down in the Staff Regulations. The revision proposed as a joke by Commissioner Kinnock might even be a good opportunity to lay down a decision of this type. In any event, I suspect that we are a long way from that point. We must therefore do the best with what we have and with solutions which may be enshrined in European instruments, such as the Staff Regulations, but which represent only one possible approach towards a future European statute. We all know that the new rules adopted by Parliament on the situation of parliamentary assistants are nothing more than internal regulations. We must ensure the transparency of the contracts, public recruitment procedures, the requirement for an effective system of social protection and the payment of tax in each of the Member States. These rules are an expression of our political will but they also reveal the weakness of Parliament’s powers to regulate an entire statute for parliamentary assistants, which involves, of course, much more than just these issues. In any event, now that these rules have been agreed on, I am sure that there is a broad majority in this House, and this can be seen in the Bureau, in the Contact Group and in the speeches that have been made here, that wishes the Council to frame in law what is already being practised, affecting only our institutions, through an amendment to Regulation No 1408/71, which is a general rule covering migrant workers. Ultimately, by means of the amended base Regulation which applies to all the Member States, we want parliamentary assistants to be given the right, as migrant workers, to be able to choose to be governed by the legislation of the country that is most relevant to their work, which is divided between Brussels, Strasbourg, Luxembourg and the country of origin of the Member of the European Parliament for whom they work. We have been informed today, by Commissioner Liikanen, that the Commission is, at last, going to get the ball rolling on this dossier. We will then begin to emerge from the tunnel in which we are stuck if the Belgian Presidency manages to close this dossier. Later, if the Belgian Presidency is successful, we will have to conclude the work. That, however, Mr President, is simply a matter of tidying up loose ends."@en1

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