Mr President, I wish to begin by taking this opportunity to welcome the observers. I am delighted to see them here in Strasbourg. We have spent many meetings discussing the arrival of observers in the Committee on Budgets. It is good to have them here to be able to listen to this important debate. This is one of the first issues in budgetary terms to affect them directly. I would also like to thank all my colleagues and the budget secretariat for their work and cooperation in producing these estimates. 2004 is an 'E-year': it is a year of enlargement, an electoral year and, if the 1999 election results are anything to go by, the end-of-term year for over 56% of Members. All these factors will have significant political, structural and budgetary implications. Thus these estimates for 2004 involve some profound changes that make budgetary planning a little more challenging. In addition to the challenges posed by enlargement and the elections, Parliament will also face considerable changes in 2004, such as the possible adoption of the Statute for Members, the increase in the total number of Members, the revision of staff regulations and a reform of its administrative structure with a view to improving service to Members. The precise budgetary implications of some of these changes are not yet determined and, therefore, are not fully incorporated into these estimates and will have to be taken into consideration during the first reading of the 2004 budget in the autumn. However, I would like to expand on some of the issues I have just touched on. Firstly, the Statute for Members: I very much hope that we will have a Statute for Members in effect next year. The lack of transparency in the travel regime and the general allowance regime does more to undermine the credibility of this House than any other factor. Therefore, I would urge this Parliament to do its level best to ensure that the appropriations put in reserve are actually utilised for this purpose. Whilst I am on perks and privileges, I would like to refer to the amendment by the Group on the extension of the health insurance scheme to former Members. I am astonished that the right-wing British Conservatives have tabled this. They always claim that they are the champions of the fight against the gravy train and here they are, in complete contradiction, asking for an extension of the scheme, which is totally unjustifiable, which will only benefit a few Members at enormous cost to the taxpayer, and which will be extremely difficult to administer. What is even more disappointing is that the Quaestors have sent an e-mail to all Members urging them to vote for this. It is an absolute disgrace. I do not know how Mr Balfe and others can justify this particular expenditure to their constituents. The Bureau has had serious reservations about this, has not entered any funding for this and, owing to legal reasons, has referred it back. There are also important budgetary considerations. We cannot simply look at the immediate impact of such a measure, but need to examine what this could cost in the long run. It could be very expensive. It is not just the question of the wisdom of agreeing a special deal for the outgoing Members of this Parliament that could be open to all sorts of legal challenges from every other former Member, but it is also morally wrong for us to go down this route. Therefore, I am advising this House to vote against paragraph 3 in my report, or to support the amendment tabled by the Group. Let us not fool ourselves. These two issues are not just technical internal matters; they will run and run in the press of many countries leading up not just to next year's election but for many years to come. Next year's election – apart from a huge turnover of Members in this House, combined with the increase in its membership by a fifth – will be one of the biggest transitions in the history of this Parliament. Whilst we have made preparations in our physical environment and our linguistic regime, in the hemicycles and so on, we have not adequately addressed many very important issues concerning information, communication and IT strategies. We need to ensure that we counter the democratic deficit argument in terms of our say in legislation. Therefore, for us, the electoral turnout is of paramount importance. We need to do more to make the citizens aware of Parliament's work, to increase their interest in our work and to ensure greater participation. For me, information policy is of key importance. I know that the Bureau has now adopted a report of activities with a view to the European elections. However, this lacks ambition and innovation. Clear strategies and plans need to be in place now if they are to have any effect. This is not just Parliament's role. I have to tell the Commission frankly that I have been disappointed with the lack of progress the Interinstitutional Working Group has made. It has failed to get our key priorities and messages across to the citizen. The Commission and the Member States have let us down. I urge them to act together and make greater progress in this area. Whilst one of our main objectives in the last few years has been to get closer to the citizen, our technology is still somewhere in the 20th century. We appear to have a very slow, tortoise-like evolution in our information and communication policy, whilst our costs are haring away. Given that IT expenditure in Parliament is one of the highest compared with other institutions, I would like an explanation as to why the Europarl site is not state-of-the-art or very user-friendly, and why we have limited access to technology and video-compositing facilities. Where has this money gone? Having said that, I am pleased to note that we are finally making progress in Internet broadcasting. I believe that our proceedings in this Chamber today are being broadcast live. We have temporary multilingual information panels across Parliament's building here. This is an important step forward on the eve of enlargement next May. However, concerning other issues, such as canteens, the environment in Brussels, accessibility of the buildings and the car service, we need to be a lot more ambitious. In the context of all of this, I welcome the efforts by the administration and the Bureau to modernise not just Parliament's staff policy but the way we deal with staffing matters. We need to move from a pure administration aspect of staff matters to a more modern, strategic and forward-looking staff management and also recognise that information technology has changed the way we work and look at our administration. Although this will not have a major impact on the 2004 budget, I would like to invite the Secretary-General to continue to pursue his efforts in this area. I know there are some very difficult decisions that will have an impact on establishment plans, but it is important that we continue to evolve and look at the best way we can use our human resources. That brings me to budgetary rigour. If this is to have real meaning, we have to have more rationalisation and leaner management structures and grasp the nettle of multilingualism to improve efficiency across a number of areas. Parliament must continue to apply this policy and provide the best value for money for the European taxpayer as well as to continue to make the best use of available resources in the current budget. We can only convince people externally that we are applying budgetary rigour if we can demonstrate it internally. We can achieve this through improved presentation and transparency of the budget. Yet there is very little evidence that a number of our requests have been taken seriously. We have a classic situation here where ideas are crushed not by suppressing them but by ignoring them. There are two main areas I want to touch on briefly: we need to improve the presentation and accountability of the budget in every area, and that applies equally to the political groups. Finally, before we begin the vote I will announce a technical adjustment, namely the fact that we have reached an agreement with the Council on the adjustment of the financial perspective. There is no need for this phrase in the text any more.

Political group: PSE