Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-09-15-Speech-2-012"
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"en.20090915.3.2-012"2
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"Mr President, Secretary of State, Commissioner, we can surely agree that when drawing up the European Parliament’s budget, we must focus on our core mission, which is legislative work. Issues unconnected with this must be excluded from the budget as much as possible.
We will discuss the final form of the budget today in an arbitration process involving the Presidency of the European Parliament and the Committee on Budgets. At this point, I would like to thank the representatives of the political groupings. In the meeting of the Committee on Budgets yesterday, they backed proposals to reduce the budget and measures which will lead to the better use of financial resources.
We are constantly confronted with numerous shortcomings that prevent us from using our resources in a fully efficient manner. One example of this is the security for the buildings in which we are conducting these debates today. As you know, we spend four days a month in Strasbourg. Despite this, there were security guards stationed at both entrances 365 days a year until recently. The new Secretary General of the European Parliament and his colleagues discovered this and implemented measures which will bring annual savings of more than EUR 2 million.
Another example is the Court of Auditors’ reports on translations. Insufficient planning and insufficient communication or a complete absence of communication regarding the availability of translation resources prevents these resources being used effectively. The organisation which is supposed to provide translations often instructs external translators automatically without even checking whether there is any spare capacity available in the internal organisation.
It is for this reason that we are proposing a reserve of 5% against the resources earmarked for translation in the budgets of the various institutions. We shall release this reserve when they show that they have tried to make full use of the resources of the internal organisation. In the area of translations alone, we can save around EUR 11 million annually.
There are many similar examples. Most of them have a common denominator: we are making little use of independent studies into the use of resources and the organisation of work. I believe that the political will shown yesterday by the representatives of the various political groupings in the discussions of the Committee on Budgets will bear fruit.
Expenses for the purchase, upkeep and rental of buildings form one of the main administrative expense items of EU institutions. There have been various cases in the past where institutions have purchased or rented property using methods that were not entirely efficient. According to the Court of Auditors, the institutions do not cooperate in these areas or even fail to assess their own policies.
We have therefore asked the European Parliament administration to draw up a medium-term strategic document on buildings. We wanted to adopt a sensible decision on this matter in the first reading. There is a need to draw up a joint policy on buildings, not only in the European Parliament, but also within the framework of all institutions, and to ensure better cooperation in this area. Secretary of State, I am delighted that, like us, the Council has adopted this as a priority objective and I would like to express my thanks for that."@en1
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