Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-05-10-Speech-2-010-000"
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"en.20110510.4.2-010-000"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, firstly I wish to thank everyone with whom I have had the pleasure to work, in particular the shadow rapporteurs, whose cooperation was excellent. I would also like to thank the members of the Committee on Budgetary Control, as there was a clear majority on the Committee who were in favour of the report and the atmosphere was very positive indeed. My thanks also go to all the officials who were of assistance to us. The work was demanding, it took a long time, and the issues are quite delicate and awkward, but they nevertheless have to be dealt with and discussed.
The main idea in the report is that we in the EU are now going through an economic crisis. Member States, companies and the general public are continually having to think about how they can make savings and how they can manage from one day to the next. Parliament must do the same, and the Council has even proposed that Parliament should also think about savings in this respect and that they need to be made. Of course, this is problematic, because we all have our own pet projects and our own ideas about what Parliament should be doing anyway. Finding areas in which to make savings in such a case is sometimes obviously very difficult.
Many things that are proposed here and that relate to Members’ benefits and the way in which they work are not very major in terms of cash. The EU’s economy will not rise or fall because of them, but the loss of reputation that we could cause if we do not function in a reasonable manner and one that is acceptable in the eyes of the public is considerable, and that is why we really need to think carefully about what we are going to do.
In my opinion, we should focus on the essential reasons why we are here. We are a legislative body; we draft a budget. That is the work we do and we need to have the means to do it. Information technology must be delivered and all the rest, but with regard to everything that goes any further than that, we have to be very critical, to ensure that it is actually connected with the work that we are here to do.
Now that time is short, I wish to raise two important but perhaps equally troublesome issues in this report. The first is security. Mr President, I hope that the SecretaryGeneral will soon make a proposal to improve security. In the space of a year or so, we have had three robberies: in the bank, the canteen and the post office. This really cannot continue. We know that there is a continual threat of terrorism throughout the world. If Parliament’s security is so poor that someone can walk in here and rob the post office or the bank, and no one even gets caught, there is every reason to make improvements, and fast. There are a lot of details connected with this, and they are set out in this report. They should serve as a basis for essentially improving security.
The next important matter is that I cannot possibly justify to the public the fact that every three weeks we change our place of work. This incurs far more expenditure. It cannot be justified, and that is why we should have the courage to discuss here openly whether this is a reasonable way to spend taxpayers’ money. We know how difficult this is; this is about our history and private passions, but in the current economic crisis we need to speak about this issue. We cannot build walls like these between the decisionmakers and the people and alienate one from the other in this way. That is why we need to raise the matter and talk about it.
Yesterday I saw a document that said that the French Senate has proposed that Parliament should only meet in one place, Strasbourg. This would suit me fine, because the main issue is that we should only have one place of work and not spend money on constant travel to and fro."@en1
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