Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-05-18-Speech-2-011"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20100518.5.2-011"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:translated text |
"Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Parliament’s budget for 2011 is the first real budget for our Chamber since the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon. That means that Parliament has more competences, we have more duties, we have more responsibility, we have more legislative duties – in other words, we need more working capacity and that means we need a bigger budget.
At the same time – and this is very important to me – we have to be aware that we are in the midst of the economic and financial crisis and the euro stability crisis. In Germany the debt cutbacks will kick in in 2011, high levels of cutbacks are needed in Greece and in all heavily indebted public budgets. We thus need to find a very responsible position for how we approach the increases in Parliament’s budget in these difficult economic times. As rapporteur for the 2011 budget, I will reflect the majority position, although I will also set out my own green position.
Twenty per cent for Parliament’s budget, based on the administrative budget, was an upper limit that was laid down between the institutions in 1988. The majority in the Committee on Budgets believe, however, that that cannot apply to the same degree to 2011, as the reality has changed. We have enlargement, we have more competences and we have more duties, so the 20% figure must not necessarily be regarded as fixed. Despite that, it has become clear that we are aiming to stick to the area around 20% for reasons of self-discipline and responsibility.
The Bureau has proposed a figure of 20.46% – in other words, EUR 39 million above the figure for 2010. After some debate – and taking account of the conflict of aims – we have now agreed that we will only spend 20.32% – in other words, an additional EUR 20 million. There is consensus that we need more staff for enlargement, more staff for the library, IT and studies, that we need to give clearer priority to environmental protection here in Parliament and that it would be very positive for there to be more bikes available in Strasbourg so that less use would need to be made of the transport service.
Where is there controversy, however? There is controversy on the question of whether there should be more money in 2011 – EUR 1 500 – for assistants. I repeat that that is for assistants, not for Members of this House. That would total EUR 13.2 million. The majority in the Committee voted to place these increases for assistants in the reserve on the basis of the argument that this should be better evaluated and decided later in the year.
I would like to make the green position on this point clear, which is that we need to be sensitive to the general debt problems and my group therefore believes that we should waive this increase of EUR 1 500 for the next year. We should not change the Members’ statute at this point – we should instead undertake to take fewer business flights for short trips so that we actually apply environmental protection – which we repeatedly call for politically – to our own behaviour and our own Parliament. It is therefore very pleasing that we have succeeded in improving our own environmental protection data, one example being a 12.9% drop in CO
emissions in 2008. We have reduced energy consumption by 0.8%. We would like to see a job-funded pass for local public transport, in other words, we want to prove ourselves to be responsible from both a financial and an environmental policy point of view."@en1
|
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata |
"2"1
|
| lpv:videoURI |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples