Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-12-04-Speech-4-014"
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"en.20031204.1.4-014"2
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"Mr President, as the rapporteur for the European Parliament discharge for 2002, I was pleased to see that the Court of Auditors has dealt with some of the issues of concern raised in Parliament.
It is clear from the report that there are still problems. The secretarial allowance rules still contain loopholes, which mean that the money is not always spent on staff, as it should be. Despite earlier warnings from the Court of Justice, the rules on the funding of political groups still show shortcomings. There was evidence of that this week when an OLAF report showed that a former political group in this Parliament had misused funds. Finally, the pension fund still lacks a proper legal basis and does not even have sufficient funds to cover all its liabilities.
The European Parliament, as we all know, is always very good at criticising other institutions – we have done so today, but we also have to put our own House in order. Yesterday, a coalition of the selfish, the naïve and the greedy once again blocked a proposal to reform the system of pay and expenses for MEPs, which would have solved this problem once and for all. Opposition to this was led by Mr Schulz and Mr Nassauer. They are the same people who wrote to you, Mr President, asking for reform of the system of travel expenses because a German newspaper published their pictures and shamed them into action. The Bureau, as I understand it, postponed that debate. I hope that the German proposal will be taken up even though the SPD, the CDU and the CSU – not the Greens – have made it clear, privately, that they hope it will not be taken up.
The best evidence of this hypocrisy came last night, when the Bureau discussed reform of the secretarial allowance as mandated by the Court of Auditors. I am told that Mr Friedrich’s first reaction was to ask whether MEPs could still employ their relatives if the new rules were adopted! I am not against MEPs employing relatives
if it is done in an honest and transparent manner, even though I personally do not think it is a wise move. However, Mr Friedrich’s reaction demonstrates that, unfortunately, for some MEPs on both sides of the House, the only purpose of their membership of this Parliament is self-enrichment and deceit.
Fortunately, there are many MEPs, including colleagues such as Mr Kuhne, who want to reform our system of expenses. This question will be at the heart of my report on the discharge for the European Parliament for the 2002 financial year. 2004 is an election year; we cannot afford to embark upon this election with the current system, which is morally corrupt. If necessary, we must publicly shame our House into action."@en1
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