Mr President, I speak on behalf of the Socialist Group in relation to the Virrankoski report. Firstly, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur on a very good approach to this issue and to say that the Socialist Group broadly agrees with the matters he has raised. On the issue of staffing, which affects all the institutions, we take the view that we have to find a balance between financial prudence and the ability of the institutions to do their job properly. As we have just heard, there is a danger of the institutions taking on new tasks which they are unable to resource properly. Mr Virrankoski has just about got the balance right. We would have liked to be a bit more generous to Parliament in terms of staffing resources. On the European Parliament section of the budget, we firstly welcome the fact there has been a marked change in attitude between the Bureau and the Budgets Committee. As someone who sits on both, perhaps I can comment on this. The way in which the Bureau and the Budgets Committee have worked together to come to a compromise on Parliament’s budget has been very constructive. I want to highlight just three issues within Parliament budget. One is the issue of the Members’ Statute. There was a suggestion that we should put money on the line for a Members’ Statute. The Socialists rejected this idea, not in any way to weaken our approach to the Members’ Statute; through our comments we indicate we strongly support the notion of a Members’ Statute but believe it is now up to the Council to respond to Parliament’s proposals in this area. Similarly with political parties, the Socialist Group strongly supports the notion of European political parties. But you simply cannot put money on the line without having an idea of who is going to qualify for this money, what purposes the money is going to be used for, and so on. Parliament has produced an excellent report – the Tsatsos report – in this area. It is now up to the Commission to bring forward a proposal on how we might implement the proposal for a European political party. Once that happens, again the Socialists would be happy to negotiate the idea of putting money on the line. Finally, and perhaps something that you and I, Mr President, take a personal interest in, the notion of regional offices. The Bureau of Parliament last night decided that Edinburgh, Marseilles, Milan, Munich and Barcelona should all have regional offices. We have put money in the reserve in the budget. When we come to second reading, I hope we can release that money from the reserve and get on with implementing the policy of regional offices. They are vital in terms of Parliament’s strategy of bringing Parliament closer to the people. The only other institution’s budget I want to talk about specifically and briefly is the Court of Justice’s budget. My view, and I am sure the view of many in this House, is that justice delayed is often justice denied. It is quite clear that the Court of Justice has not had the resources to carry out its tasks properly. The Council has made a limited gesture in terms of improving staffing of the Court. Parliament wants to go further. I hope we will support the rapporteur’s proposal here. In particular, delays in interpretation and translation are causing major problems for the Court. We should do all in our power to resolve this. The Virrankoski report does that. I turn briefly to the Bourlanges report which is outwith my own remit. I put on record my support for Mr Bourlanges’ approach to the 2000 budget. He is absolutely right to reject the 10% across the board crude reduction in development lines. It is true, as the Council says, that some development lines have not been used well. It is true that some suffer from underspend. But simply to say that we cut them all by 10% is a very crude mechanism. The Council needs to make a more refined proposal before we come to second reading. At the moment, the rapporteur is absolutely right. Money for East Timor, Kosovo and other emergencies like Turkey, has to come from new money unless the Council makes a more refined proposal. To pick up Mr Elles’ last point on the Technical Assistance Offices, again, the Council has been silent on this. It was the root of the problem with the Santer Commission. What the rapporteur has said in his report is absolutely right on this issue. Again, the Socialist Group gives him 100% backing.

Political group: PSE