Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, over recent days, just before the debate on this report, certain areas of the media created the impression that we needed outsiders to open our eyes to shortcomings in our own institution, as if Parliament would operate double standards, by being intensely critical of the Commission, but turning a blind eye to its own shortcomings. I should like to report quite unequivocally that neither applies. My draft report was presented to the Committee in all language versions on 10 February this year and all the shortcomings reported in the press, such as the article in the European Voice about 10 days ago, have already been addressed in an open and critical manner in the report. There has been no whitewash. The report before Parliament today both contains a description of the shortcomings and lays down clear conditions for the attention of Parliament’s administration, including deadline commitments, which clearly show what needs to be done in order to rectify these shortcomings. In addition, contrary to the Commission discharge procedure, we have no cause to complain that we did not receive certain documents. Some were perhaps a little late in arriving, but they did all arrive. That is another difference in the discharge procedures. We here in Parliament certainly have cases of mismanagement in certain areas which need to be criticised and cleared up, but we have no legacy such as cases of fraud. I say that in order to highlight an important difference, because interested parties have “let it drop” that, if Parliament is using the same yardstick, then it should come to the same conclusion and cannot postpone discharge for the Commission on the one hand and be prepared to discharge itself on the other. I am all in favour of the same yardstick, but the same yardstick does not necessarily give the same results. We should not sit down with the strategic far-sightedness of garden gnomes and say, now we must kow-tow to those who have given the impression that we should go around in sackcloth and ashes just so that our decision to postpone discharge of the Commission seems more credible. Were we to do so, I can assure you that, within half an hour of the vote on Thursday, you would hear the sound, from Brussels to Strasbourg, of the champagne corks popping in many a Brussels office in which many people would be delighted if Parliament were to make the content of its own discharge the variable upon which the Commission discharge depended. If we did that, there would not be a single Commission over the next 20 years which needed to fear Parliament’s discharge or, at most, its merciless opportunism! I should like to come now to the question of where the shortcomings which we must clear up lie. We must, for example, reverse the trend whereby the number of direct contracts has increased dramatically in comparison with the number of open competitions. This refers mainly to the fixtures and fittings in this building. It is not a procedure which is illegal per se and it would be wrong to assume that it were. However, we must insist that this trend be reversed in order to reinstate a sound administrative culture. This direct contract procedure must not catch on and become the predominant procedure. In the long term, it would mean accepting cost increases on orders without being able to check if they could be obtained more cheaply elsewhere, which is why this trend must be reversed. The second point is this: Parliament has lost several cases on personnel issues before the European Court of Justice over recent years and the verdict of the European Court of Justice has been harsh and clear. It has been clearly stated that our own, previously public, competition criteria have been broken for certain positions in order to lever certain persons into those positions. Parliament and its members must ensure that there is no place for this sort of thing in our House and that we keep our employees motivated by ensuring that they can be certain that promotions and recruitments are made on the basis of merit and qualification, not cronyism. Another important point addressed relates to the question of buildings. We have come to the conclusion that Parliament is in an extremely difficult position, for which the Council is mainly to blame. The Council finances its own building out of compulsory costs in the budget but has denied Parliament the facility of direct financing. I am not in favour – and I say so quite clearly, despite all the difficulties which we have to overcome – of sending yet another box of chocolates over to the Council in its building and tying yet another ribbon around it and saying, all right, we profess our faith in the fact that the whole procedure is beset with legal problems. We have already discussed them at length. We have received every document written on the subject. What I say is, whoever still has a problem should please go to the European Court of Justice and get it cleared up there, rather than turning plenary into an extrajudicial seminar. They should also consider what it means, from a political point of view, if we go ahead and give these sweets to the Council. The inventory has been addressed. Mr Seppänen addressed it yesterday. The report itself lists the difficulties which have arisen, the huge number of items which have disappeared or, to put it bluntly, been stolen. In the meantime, thank God, we have introduced an electronic inventory system in Parliament. We are now waiting for an explanation as to how this electronic system functions. I should like to come back to the question of yardsticks and results. If the majority in Parliament decides, not for reasons which have something to do with this report, but for reasons which have to do with the fact that certain groups have more skeletons in their cupboard than others when it comes to what they have done with their group money and what they have done with party financing; if a majority plays pass the parcel with this report, then we here in Parliament will end up in the position over the next few weeks of having to ask ourselves what future the Commission and Parliament discharge procedure has, now that it is no more than an excuse for party political manipulation and manoeuvring. I hope I do not have to sit in such a Parliament.

Political group: PSE