Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-10-23-Speech-2-166"
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"en.20011023.7.2-166"2
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"President, our spokesman will be speaking for our Group later, but I also have a few comments to make at this stage. As other speakers have already done, I should like to congratulate our two main rapporteurs, Mr Costa Neves and Mrs Buitenweg. It is never an easy job to steer something through this House, as I know, and I think that they should be warmly applauded.
There is, however, one more very critical point, and I turn again to the Council of Ministers here. Rumour has it, Mr President, that the early retirement package which is being negotiated in the Council at the moment is not open to Parliament. I would like you to confirm in any future remarks that it will be open to us – that is a critical point for our Group as we wish to see it applied across all institutions.
I conclude, Mr President, on a point for our institution. Yesterday evening, the Bureau decided, in opposition to the resolution of Mr Harbour, to go against the idea of having a linear career structure – I quote paragraph 38 of the Resolution which we voted in this House last November – "urges Parliament's administration to introduce a linear career structure in parallel to the Commission allowing for easy interinstitutional transfer". It is unacceptable that Parliament's Bureau seems to have gone totally AWOL and decided for itself: under pressure from Parliament's administration, Parliament's Bureau has chosen to ignore what this Parliament has voted for.
Therefore, you will have to answer three questions, and I end on this.
Why is the organisation and the function of Parliament so distinctive from the Commission as to require a different career structure?
Secondly, how can a career structure retaining four different categories meet the objectives of a linear career structure with progression on merit as strongly supported by Parliament?
And lastly, how can staff mobility between institutions be encouraged if Parliament and the Commission have different career structures? The Bureau has to come and justify before this Parliament the decisions it has taken as they are not in line with our resolutions.
With the Commission budget this year, we have a proposal in front of us which, at 1.06% of GDP, is one of lowest budgets we have seen proposed in this House and therefore well below the ceiling as foreseen in the Financial Perspective, but I guess that with enlargement on its way, the Financial Perspective could well be tested before we reach the end of 2006.
In referring to the Costa Neves Report, I should like, first of all, to congratulate the rapporteur on having focused on the progress report, on what had been done in terms of following up on the Joint Council/Parliament Declaration at the end of last year which has shown its worth in our budgetary procedure. It may well be a useful idea to think of continuing this on an annual basis, because where we have gained is looking at the efficiency and effectiveness of the operations of the European institutions, and this for us in Parliament is a point of major importance which I shall come back to at the end of my speech.
I should like to raise a few points on the particular matters of the Commission budget where we would, as a group, be looking for value for money – a tried and tested position with us.
Firstly, in terms of agriculture: we do not believe in having a reserve – we already have some money which has already been made available and a letter of amendment on its way, and I feel that it is quite sufficient. But we think there should be an enquiry into the management of foot-and-mouth by the Commission and the British authorities, and we will be pushing for that.
Secondly, we believe that in information policy there is a continuing problem: every time we see Commission proposals come through without the interinstitutional working groups, we as a Parliament have to put them back on the information policy lines. I urge the Commission to make sure that they become a permanent part of your proposals – this will save some effort on our part to ensure that this interinstitutional work is continued.
Thirdly, in terms of the food safety agency – I noted that was raised in the European Council in Ghent – I would remind the President-in-Office (instead of laughing, he might listen to parliamentarians when they are speaking) that Parliament's position is that the money will stay in reserve until we are satisfied about the operations and the location of this agency. I therefore assume that you will consult Parliament before any final decision is taken.
Fourthly, as regards Afghanistan – and I turn to the Commission again here – there is an amendment down to create a ‘pour memoire’ entry for aid to Afghanistan, and we will be asking the Council with Parliament to put this into the budget on second reading because we want to see in our Group that there will be an international alliance to help the reconstruction of Afghanistan once the conflict is over, and initial thinking on this issue is already under way in the United Nations.
Lastly, I would like to refer to the question of the posts which we have put in reserve and we would like to ensure that the conditions for the reserve are met before the posts are released – including the fact that the Commission has the capacity to use the posts during the next year in terms of the vacancies."@en1
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