Madam President, there was a very high level of implementation of the European Parliament’s budget for the financial year 2000. The utilisation rate was 99.28%, and the ratio of payment appropriations to all commitments was 91.05%. The high degree of implementation was partly the result of the end-of-year mopping-up transfers, where funds were transferred to pay for Parliament’s buildings. In this way we were able to reduce the future costs of renting. In the future this sort of practice should be done away with and we should budget strictly for actual estimated expenditure. Parliament’s accounts are abstruse, however. For that reason, the report proposes that the way they are presented should be clarified and that, more specifically, there should be a clear breakdown of capital investment with regard to buildings. The main points of focus in the budget for 2000 were the promotion of activity based management and better allocation of human resources. Activity based budgeting and management has begun to improve, but, as the report states, the results are still modest. Power of decision and responsibility must be delegated further downwards, and each member of staff’s personal responsibilities must be clarified. We furthermore have to change to a form of administration in which it is the results of actions that are assessed and not so much the way the administration is organised. Only in this way can we make the administration more efficient and make savings. In this respect the recommendations of the Rome-PE report should be implemented and internal financial control improved. We must be able to redeploy human resources more flexibly and put an end to functions that are unnecessary. The current system is too rigid and set in its ways. This is also linked to the question of inequality between women and men. The European Parliament is still a very old-fashioned place to work in. In the last eighteen months eighteen people have been appointed to posts in categories A1 – A3. Of them, just one was a woman and seventeen were men. The report criticises this and calls for the introduction of quota arrangements until a normal state of affairs is reached. Political groups are also connected with the matter of administration. It is in accordance with the principles of activity based management that the groups’ internal autonomy should be developed. For that reason the report requests that this special feature should be taken into account in one way or another when the Financial Regulation is amended. The report insists that the groups should present their balance sheets and financial statements more clearly and that they should be published. Furthermore, there must be improvements made to asset management and inventories. In addition, the responsibility of the group as party to agreements in general and as employer in particular must be legally clarified so that the European Parliament is not always ultimately accountable. Regarding Parliament’s two places of assembly we state that just the variable costs of meetings alone at Strasbourg are 33% more than in Brussels. In addition there are considerably higher costs mainly due to the fact that there is double the number of buildings in Strasbourg. Shortening the length of a part-session produces savings of just 1%. This matter would perhaps be worth looking into by the Convention dealing with Treaty reform. The biggest single problem is the cost of the Louise Weiss building in Strasbourg. No agreement has been reached concerning the final investment costs with the project’s promoter, SERS. The dispute concerns the completion date and that is to be decided by the Court of Justice of the European Communities. In addition there are disputes over work, additional work and unnecessary work. There are also disputes between the promoter and the subcontractors. It may take as long as ten years to resolve the argument completely. Considering that Parliament did not want two meeting places, but agrees to meet in Strasbourg under great pressure from France in particular, we must insist that the dispute over the construction costs of the Parliament are resolved immediately. The city of Strasbourg and the Alsace Region have the controlling interest in SERS, owning 60% of the shares in all. They must therefore wield their power. Furthermore, France must take responsibility for seeing to it that the European Parliament does not need to be party to the disputes and can pay for its work premises immediately and acquire title accordingly. It is unfair that Parliament should continually have to remain vigilant to ensure that it is not being billed for costs that are unjustified. With these observations the report proposes granting discharge to the Secretary-General in respect of the implementation of the 2000 budget and to the Accounting Officer in respect of the accounts for 2000. – 2000 Discharge: General Budget – Sections IV, V, VI (+1996 to 1999 discharges), VII, VIII/Postponement of 2000 Discharge, Section II

Political group: ELDR