Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-06-22-Speech-3-112"
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"en.20050622.14.3-112"2
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I will not keep to the speech that I had prepared and I apologise for that, but the speech made by Mr Schmit forces me to hurriedly change the scope of my speech.
I find the expression ‘the same job, the same pay’ completely outrageous. I say that as a lawyer, as a legal expert: it is unthinkable that a Member can portray himself as an employee who is given a wage. The Member has an allowance and therefore a sense of dignity, and if we want to give that back to Parliament, we are the first ones obliged to respect its rules, which are also rules of behaviour, in addition to written, and sometimes disobeyed, rules.
Among those rules, European law has to guarantee equality. I ask Mr Schmit whether there is a principle of equality by which, a five-star hotel room in one of the new Member States costs the equivalent of EUR 40, as was our experience two weeks’ ago in Krakow, Poland, whilst it costs the equivalent of EUR 500 or EUR 700 for a hotel of the same standard in Rome, Paris or any other European capital. Whilst you can dine out on EUR 10 in a restaurant in one of the countries of the East, a restaurant of the same quality in Italy, Germany or France charges EUR 70, EUR 80 or EUR 100. Today, we are playing a part, fully aware that we are being hypocritical at least. From a legal point of view, I believe that it is unacceptable, partly because the interpretation that we are going to give – and I am only talking about Articles 9 and 10, Mr President – is that the Members are entitled to a fair allowance, enough to give them an independent living.
What constitutes fairness and independence for a Member, however? Independence with regard to what, if then, in Article 10, the Member’s dignity is regarded as 38.5% of the basic salary of a judge in the Court of Justice? I ask that that be not mentioned; the allowance required should still be laid down, but not by linking it to that of a civil servant. The Member’s dignity stems from his direct election by the people. Being elected by an Italian electorate of 15 million voters, as I was, is not the same as becoming a Member in an ordered list, produced by the parties in another country where a person has no expenses ..."@en1
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