On Tuesday 26 March in Strasbourg, the European Parliament called for new rules to improve transparency and financial accountability with regard to Members' general expenditure allowances.
The additional requests requested to provide clarity on how MEPs spend this overhead allowance were welcomed by the Greens/EFA Group, which fought hard for it (see EUROPE 12218/10).
As part of the decision on the discharge granted for the implementation of the European Parliament's 2017 budget, the Parliament, by adopting an amendment tabled by the Greens/EFA Group, asked the Parliament Bureau to organise “immediately” a new meeting of the working group to reform the general expenditure allowance by drawing up new rules to improve transparency and financial accountability.
In addition to the measures already requested by the plenary, the Office is invited to provide for: - controls by Parliament's Internal Audit Service on the basis of a 5% sample of expenditure on the overhead allowance, the final results and conclusions of which should be included in the annual internal audit report published by the European Parliament; - the need for Members to publish an annual review of their expenditure by category (communication costs, office rental, office supplies, etc.); - the admission of an independent auditor responsible for auditing for an annual verification of accounts.
The Parliament also requests that Members reimburse Parliament at the end of their term of office for the unused amounts of this allowance and that Members keep all receipts for the general expense allowance.
Single seat. By adopting (416 votes in favour, 192 against and 31 abstentions) a two-part amendment tabled by the EFDD Group, the Parliament notes “with bitterness” that, during a single parliamentary term, the cost of Parliament's geographical dispersion can reach one billion euros and is upset by the multiannual building projects undertaken to expand Members' offices in Strasbourg and Brussels. The Parliament (411 votes for the second part of the amendment, 205 against and 15 abstentions) “calls, therefore, for practical steps to be taken quickly to establish a single seat for Parliament, in order to prevent any further waste of public money”.
EASO. In addition, it should be noted that the Parliament confirmed that it was postponing its decision on the discharge to the Executive Director of the European Asylum Support Office (EASO) for the implementation of the 2017 EASO budget. He criticises the fact that payments are “not in accordance with the Financial Regulation”, mainly as regards public procurement and recruitment procedures. In addition, the internal control system is considered “inadequate” and the combined amount of errors resulting from non-compliant payments would amount to at least 7.7 million euros, or 10.3% of the total payments made by the Office in 2017. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)