Mr President, Commissioner, in relation to what Mrs Haug had to present, a banker might say that the budget for the other institutions is peanuts; small budgets which are not as significant, including from the political standpoint, but which are important nonetheless because they allow the other institutions to make their work transparent and thus, I think, to look their citizens in the eye. What are the challenges which we must take into account in the small budgets for the coming year? First, and this applies to all the budgets, budgetary rigour. When I see that we alone in the European Parliament are planning an increase of 0.07% in comparison with the year 2000, then this rigour is guaranteed and we can show our face. Compared with a total budget of EUR 965 million, that does not represent too big a bite out of the cake at our disposal. What are the challenges of Activity Based Budgeting? Of course this is a question which we must also apply to the other institutions, as and where it is sensible to do so. If I look around me here, I might wonder what the costs are in relation to the number of members present. That is not what we mean by these questions; what we mean is transparent expenditure in the budget lines, so that everything is comprehensible. We must draw up a medium-term personnel plan in order to meet the huge challenge of the enlargement of the European Union. This is a huge challenge for us in Parliament and for the translation services in the other institutions. We have been preparing for this over recent years and we must start to take up the challenges and manage personnel developments accordingly in 2001. This gives rise to a second thought which we must consider. How can we work together with other institutions in the area of personnel recruitment? We shall have similar positions to fill in individual areas in the coming years and it makes perfect sense to consider organising and centralising these activities. We must bear in mind that there are also new challenges in the legislative area since the Treaty of Amsterdam entered into force. I only have to look at the Commission’s work programme, with its 108 codecision procedures, to see that this is a challenge which we did not have to face in the past. Even in the peak years at the beginning of the 1990s, when we were implementing the internal market programme, we only had a third to a half of the labour costs now being proposed by the Commission and we must organise our work more efficiently and provide the resources so that we can carry out our work accordingly. This includes preliminary scientific work, I should like to be quite clear on that. We are dealing with a Commission which has a joint research centre. We are dealing with 15 Member States which have their own national resources and, as a legislator with equal rights, Parliament must naturally make use of its opportunities here. I suggest, and the Committee on Budgets agrees with me here, that we introduce improvements in the area of public relations, so that we have a starting point at which citizens who want to find out more about the work of Parliament can do so without needing to be in an official group of visitors. We suggest that we make provision for new posts in certain areas, but only where absolutely necessary. We shall have to examine this very closely over coming weeks and months because we have some room for manoeuvre. We have taken a very reasonable approach to buildings policy, as far as the costs of the European Parliament building are concerned, but it makes no sense if we again destroy our new found freedoms straight away in 2001. As far as the other institutions are concerned, I only have a few comments to make. I think we should try to ensure that the interpreting service starts working more closely with the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions forthwith. There is potential for collaboration here. We shall have to monitor the Court of Justice very closely. I hope that new rules will be developed for the Court of Justice during the review of the Treaty which will allow it to operate efficiently and which will ensure that there is long-term financing for personnel planning. I should expressly like to praise the Court of Auditors which not only monitors us strictly, it also honours its undertakings to the letter, and I think that we must also ensure that funds are used economically as regards the Ombudsman, especially as far as new posts are concerned. I should like to thank everyone who worked with us on this, especially our own administration, for their correct and very positive preliminary work, and all the honourable Members who made it possible for us to present a proper result to plenary despite the limited time available. IN THE CHAIR: MR PUERTAVice President

Political group: PPE-DE