Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-12-17-Speech-3-012"
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"en.20031217.1.3-012"2
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"Mr President, we shall shortly be celebrating a silver jubilee: this Parliament has now been a directly elected body for 25 years. Nevertheless, the legal status of the Members is a patchwork that is falling apart on all sides. Pay according to national rules varies to such an extent that it bears no relation to responsibility and workload. At the same time, travel expense reimbursement is running into figures that are increasingly out of proportion to the actual expenses, particularly owing to competition in air transport. At the Amsterdam Summit in June 1997, a legal basis was incorporated into the Treaty enabling Parliament to draft a statute, which was to be adopted by the Council. Now, six-and-a-half years on, that Statute has still not been adopted. With the accession of ten new Member States on
1 May and the elections next June casting their shadow, it is now make or break time. Do we mean to face the electorate once again with an unjustified system of expense reimbursement and an unaccountable difference in Members’ pay? It seems to me that it is time that we moved on to debate political issues of a different order.
A common statute for the Members
from all the Member States
does justice to the ideal of equal pay for equal responsibility. At the same time, it is at odds with subsidiarity. As far as many members of the Group for a Europe of Democracies and Diversities are concerned, this is reason to retain a nationally determined legal status. At the same time, the whole group wants to see a radical reorganisation of the reimbursement of travel expenses. Year in, year out, our group submits a budget amendment to the effect that reimbursement be based on the travel expenses actually incurred, and every year a majority in this Parliament rejects that proposal. Indisputable as that last point may be, it leads my Dutch fellow Members and me to the conclusion that reimbursement of travel expenses cannot be achieved on its own, but only in combination with a statute. For that reason, we think that the Statute should have been in place long ago. Until recently, that was prevented by the familiar three stumbling blocks, about each of which I shall say a few words.
The first is primary law, immunity and suchlike: fortunately, the resolutions finally cut this loose. This part inevitably has to go its own way. The Council has repeatedly stated its intention to cooperate on this, and we shall hold it to that.
The second is the retirement age. It has emerged that, on average, MEPs retire at 62 in practice. In the light of social developments, the age of 63 preferred by the Council is not unreasonable.
The third is national taxation. Years ago, the then Belgian Presidency proposed a compromise enabling us to accommodate subsidiarity on this point.
One knot that we still have to cut concerns pay. The present national figures include extremes of high and low. As far as the lowest figures are concerned, I assume that, historically, these were not based on a full-time position. In our view, a weighted average of the present 15 figures would represent a sound system of remuneration according to work done. The idea of expressing that as a percentage of the remuneration of a judge of the Court of Justice seems to be a good solution, including where index-linking is concerned.
The Italian Prime Minister yesterday expressed pride that last weekend’s summit took so many decisions with great energy. As far as we are concerned, the Statute is the test. If this Presidency can report that the Council approves the Statute, it can consider itself a success. If not, it is over to the Irish Presidency. A good start is half the battle. The Irish have demonstrated their capacity for hard work, and therefore I sincerely hope that they will be able to give the green light to the Statute by 15 January."@en1
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