Strasbourg, 24/07/2000 (Agence Europe) - The French President of the GUE/NGL Group, Francis Wurtz, considered that the report by Vice-President James Provan (British Conservative) on the European Parliament internal reform presents a good diagnostic of the problems but proposes remedies that would be difficult to implement. He considers that there is no routine work and that "all parliamentary work is important" and is therefore against the idea of an "Assembly Commission" responsible for a large part of the voting that is currently undertaking in plenary. Other suggestions, like the organisation of the activities of the Parliamentary committees and the meeting of political groups in a same day, also seem impracticable to him.
Returning, moreover, to the report of senior officials on the statute of MEPs, Mr. Wurtz welcomed "all that goes along the lines of rigour" and, notably a strict separation between remuneration and other benefits paid for real expenses incurred. The setting of the retiring age at 65 and the amount for the remuneration, on the other hand, appear to him to be more disputable.