Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-12-04-Speech-3-067"
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"en.20021204.4.3-067"2
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"Mr President, the reason this motion and this debate are on our agenda is due to the insistence of the Christian Democrats and Conservatives in the PPE-DE, and the Socialists and Social Democrats in the PSE. There is no need for us to have this debate today. My group is in favour of equal conditions for all Members in a Members' Statute but this motion makes it harder and more difficult for us to achieve such a statute.
If the motion proposed by Mr Barón Crespo and Mr Poettering is adopted, it will block progress in our discussions with the Council. Those two gentlemen gave you a mandate for exploratory discussions with Council and yet their parties now want to force a vote on Mr Rothley's opinion before giving Parliament the chance to consider the outcome of your discussions. Mr Rothley's opinion wants to include in the Members' Statute issues of primary law such as immunities and privileges which require ratification by national parliaments. The message about reform that they are sending to the Council is ‘take it or leave it’. The message that they are sending to MEPs who want reform is ‘forget it’.
My party's joint resolution with the GUE/NGL and Verts/ALE Groups calls for a common statute, agreed with national governments in the Council, giving equality of treatment to MEPs and transparency in our allowances. Our question to individual members of the PPE-DE and the PSE, many of whom will be laughing all the way to the bank if they stop reform, is this: have you no self-respect? Have you no concern for the reputation of this House?
I am accused in Mr Rothley's press release of being unserious, of making dishonest accusations. Mr Rothley, I take seriously the accusations of dishonesty made by citizens against us. Mr Barón Crespo accuses me of heaping invective on the socialists. If I am heaping invective on you, Mr Barón Crespo, why are so many of your members, including all of your British members, going to support our motion in the vote tomorrow? The answer is that you heap invective on yourselves and you deserve it. Moreover, you heap invective on those of us who recognise the public concern, who admit that the expenses regime is unjustifiable and who seek to introduce the highest standards into the management of this House.
Mr President, we abuse the taxpayer at our peril and we demean democratic politics through not reforming. In calling on Members to support the resolution put forward by three groups, I call on them to reject the description of politicians put forward in the words of the poet, Hilaire Belloc, when he wrote:
‘With pomp and ridiculous display
The Politician's corpse was borne away
While those around him carped and slanged
I wept: I would have seen him hanged.’"@en1
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