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 Index 
 Full text 
Verbatim report of proceedings
Wednesday, 18 April 2018 - Strasbourg Revised edition

Discharge 2016 (debate)
MPphoto
 

  Derek Vaughan, rapporteur. – Madam President, I will talk on Parliament’s discharge. First of all, I wanted to thank all the shadows and the staff involved in the discharge. At the start, I wanted also to say that there have been improvements in the performance of Parliament’s own budget. There was a positive report from the Court of Auditors on Heading 5, and spending was not affected by material error.

In terms of individual improvements in the budget, we’ve seen the driver service being brought in-house successfully, and we’ve had lots of comments about the improvements made there. We now have a road map for gender equality. The gym in Brussels has been reopened after a long closure. On harassment, the Secretary-General has agreed to set up a network of confidential counsellors which is welcome. An MEP portal has been established. There’s a new ICT project improving services for Members and local assistants. Work on improving security in and around Parliament has been undertaken and an environmental policy covering Parliament has been accepted by the Bureau. All good things, and all things we should welcome.

However, there remain some concerns. There were lots of amendments submitted on Parliament’s voluntary pension fund. We’ve seen those amendments. Some of those amendments were realistic, some were not so realistic, and on this we are awaiting the Bureau’s response to the Secretary-General’s proposal. And on this difficult issue, I think we need to spend a little bit more time considering the options which are available to us.

We are also aware that the Bureau set up a working group to talk about the issue of general expenditure allowance (GEA), an issue we talk about every single year in the discharge process and on this again we await the Bureau’s final proposal and an agreement. But as a minimum, the policy should include having separate accounts for the GEA whose seats should be kept, and unspent amounts of the GEA should be returned at the end of the Member’s mandate. We should insist that these are at least the minimum which should be required.

We also still of the difficult issue of the single seat, although recently Parliament has voted to have a single seat, many, many times, and no doubt Parliament will continue to vote to have a single seat, and we await some action on that.

In addition to that, we need a proper building strategy, particularly for the PHS building in Brussels. We understand it is not easy. It is a difficult issue and the matter of the building policy is made even more difficult by the issue of Brexit. On accredited assistants, there are some who missed out on EU pensions because they have not been employed for ten years. They feel particularly badly treated, and this issue deserves some attention. Also trainees who don’t get up but up-front mission payments is another issue. This seems particularly unfair to the lowest paid, and again, we need to see some action on this.

Finally, we need to address the delays in pay and expenses to local assistants. Hopefully, all these issues will be addressed in the near future.

I would say, perhaps, just in conclusion, that in the Committee on Budget Control we had a long debate on Parliament’s own discharge, and thanks to the Secretary-General for his input into it. We emerged from that debate with a widespread consensus. There was great cooperation amongst the groups, or most of the groups, and this was reflected in the big majority in the Committee to grant discharge for Parliament’s own budget. I hope later today we will again see a large majority to give Parliament’s budget discharge.

 
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