Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, may I say how delighted I am that my report concerning discharge of the European Parliament for the implementation of the 1999 budget was adopted unanimously in committee and has been tabled before the House today for debate and voting with no amendments, something which, I am told, has not happened for years. I hope that this will be the procedure from now on. We have endeavoured, with everybody’s help, to draft a constructive report based on two lines of approach: the quantitative and the qualitative. On the quantitative side, we used the classic method of auditing the implementation of the budget and found things to our satisfaction and liking. We identified a downward trend or, in fact, a constant reduction in the costs of missions between Luxembourg and Brussels. We found that checks made to ascertain whether officials really have taken up residence where they are supposed to have taken up residence have, without any doubt, been stepped up. We found that the number of contracts awarded through open competition is gradually increasing and we hope that this positive development will be put to more frequent use in the future. The inventory of Parliament’s property has been started, albeit somewhat late, and is making headway. Of course, it is disappointing, as we have pointed out, that a price has still not been put on this building, which we have been using for about eighteen months now. We still do not know what it is worth, what it cost or where we stand and everyone involved would do well to bear that in mind. On the qualitative side, we found that the European Parliament administers a huge budget. But what do we give out, what image does Parliament project to the outside world as it operates this huge, serious institution? You know, it is tiresome to read nothing but critical comments and critical articles in the press, given the tremendous, fundamental job done in this House, which is precisely why what we have tried to do in this report is to help increase the transparency, acknowledgement and the understanding of what happens and what we do in this chamber of democracy. What we want is to be able to quantify the European Parliament’s contribution to the legislative work of the European communities. We want to start making use of the opinions expressed by the groups of visitors who come and visit Parliament. It would be a good idea if we knew what these citizens, for whom a large sum of money is earmarked so that they can visit and get to know Parliament, feel about the European Parliament, and use them to show us a better way forward. We want to improve the efficiency of the information offices in the various capitals of the fifteen Member States, so that is the direction we are moving in. And we also want continuous support between the services of the European Parliament and the members of the Committee on Budgetary Control, so that we can implement what we decide and vote on. Hence the proposal and the decision to create a standing committee consisting of the rapporteur for discharge and the person responsible for Parliament, together with parliamentary officials, to monitor progress in and the implementation of the measures which will be proposed and which we shall vote on here tomorrow. This would turn discharge from a one-off issue into a continuous, constructive procedure. Finally, we want the staff, the officials working on economic affairs here at the European Parliament, to receive continual training, additional training and reintegration into new technologies, so that we can achieve the best possible results. Before closing, may I thank all my fellow members and all those who helped draft this report, because I think that we have done a fine job and I hope that it will be used as an example at all levels. (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE