Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-03-28-Speech-3-220"
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"en.20070328.18.3-220"2
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"Mr President, the main idea behind the budget for 2008 is that we can ensure that 2008 is the year of the taxpayers, which in practice means keeping expenditure more or less at 2007 levels. The level of inflation needs to be raised to 2007 levels. It nevertheless needs to be pointed out that this cannot apply to buildings. Buildings policy has to be kept separate because we now have so many commitments regarding buildings that expenditure in this area is bound to increase beyond this level, but then that is how the matters has been presented out in this proposal and report. It is also, however, important for Parliament’s reputation that we look after the taxpayers’ money and do not necessarily implement all the wonderful projects which have been proposed. The people cannot have confidence in Parliament if each year we spend money in accordance with the 20% rule, although now in 2008, when there will be no further enlargement or any new languages, we have a real chance of adhering to 2007 levels and showing the taxpayers that we are genuinely concerned about how much money is being spent here.
There need to be a few more projects. With respect to information policy we have to send a clear message to the people about what happens here, and this may be best realised through visitors’ groups, which has been a priority for many years. That is surely the best sort of information policy, although another issue is the small-scale local media, which does not have the resources to pay for trips to Parliament. The local media should be able to visit Parliament more often and we need to find some solution where we MEPs could invite more representatives of the local media here, because this is just the sort of media which people read and listen to, and if it reports positively on us, Parliament’s reputation and that of the EU as a whole is bound to improve.
We also need to pay more attention to the way we draft legislation, and this means that we must have good and sufficient technical facilities. In this connection there is a proposal that, for example, we Members should be able to connect to computers via our mobile phones. That facility exists in almost all the national parliaments, but not in the EU’s Parliament, and these things need to be put right by the year 2008.
Translation services are a subject we talk about daily, and this of course is largely about how equally all Members are treated regardless of which language area they come from, and this is something that is certainly in need of major, and above all, structural change. These services, however, always need to be kept functional.
I would furthermore emphasise that we could keep at this current level, and with regard to buildings, although some claim that 2008 is the last year in which money can be used for them, the list is very long indeed. We have talked about external offices in London, Stockholm, and Paris. We are embarking on the KAD construction project in Luxembourg at the same time as another institution, the European Court of Auditors, starts on a major construction project there. Here in Brussels we have completion work to do on new buildings, we have the purchase of premises close to here in the ‘banana’ building, there is the completion of the Sports Centre ... The list could go on, but this only goes to show that not all of them can be embarked on or realised in 2008: instead, a priority list should be drawn up for buildings and we need then to proceed with reference to it.
I believe that the preparatory work has been done in the right spirit and that we all wish to tell the taxpayer that the year 2008 has been specifically proclaimed the year of the taxpayers."@en1
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