Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-05-16-Speech-2-027"
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"en.20000516.2.2-027"2
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"Mr President, as other colleagues have said, dealing with Amsterdam and preparing for enlargement are major challenges for this institution.
As far as I am concerned – and we should be very clear about this – new challenges require new resources. As the rapporteur has indicated, you start by looking at existing resources and see where staff and resources which are under-utilised or no longer appropriate can be transferred.
Once that has been done, in the new situation in which the European Parliament finds itself, there is no alternative but to expand our budget. I hear what Mr Wynn, the chairman of the committee, has said about prudence. Prudence is in danger of becoming a false goddess: if we put too much emphasis on prudence it will be at the expense of the efficiency and the effectiveness of this Institution. There is a delicate balance to be struck, and I know that in his report the rapporteur has striven towards it.
I broadly welcome Mr Ferber's report. However, there are three fronts to which Parliament needs to pay more attention between now and September. The first, as other colleagues have mentioned, is the issue of languages. I had the honour of sitting on Mr Cot's working group on multilingualism. Frankly, if this institution wishes to continue to practise multilingualism – and perhaps that is a debate we should have – there is
alternative but to start recruiting now. If we leave it any longer, once we start enlargement we will not be in a position to continue multilingualism. The decision will be taken for us. We were almost in that position with Finnish at the last enlargement. As Members will notice, the Finnish interpreters do a good job speaking English and other languages because we could not recruit Finnish-speaking English interpreters. We shall find ourselves in that position again come the next enlargement unless we take hard decisions now. So I want Parliament to rethink the 35 language posts.
The second area where we still have much to do as an Institution is informatics. We have come a long way, but there are further benefits to be obtained from informatics. In particular the President of the Bureau is looking at how to reach a position where every Member has a portable computer with access to the European Parliament's computer system so that, no matter where they are in the world, they can get their own committee reports, agendas and so on. That does not require a massive increase in investment but it does require new money – an increase in Parliament's resources.
Finally, again, something I have heard you, Mr President, talk about: the issue of legal advice. The new Amsterdam situation means that when we pass amendments and resolutions in this Chamber we have to be more aware of the legal consequences as well as the political consequences of what we are deciding. We need to enhance the legal advice we have as a Parliament to support us through the conciliation and other procedures.
Finally, I should like to make it clear that I am not asking Parliament to spend massive amounts of new money. However, to spend one or two per cent more in order to ensure that we remain effective is worth it, and we should look at prudence in the context of the wider demands of this Parliament."@en1
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