Strasbourg, 01/04/2004 (Agence Europe) - Daniel Cohn-Bendit, co-president of the Greens/EFA group at the European Parliament has written to president Cox asking him to begin discussions on reform of the system on MEPs' expenses in April in order to be able to present a new proposal to the European Parliament elected in June, during the constitutive session in July (EUROPE yesterday pp 11&12 on polemic raised by denunciation by Austrian MEP Hans-Peter Martin against his colleagues).
Cohn-Bendit pointed out that the Greens had been requesting a change to the system since 2000 in order for it to be based on real expenses incurred by MEPs and insisted after the failure of efforts to adopt a status for MEPs last February that they had to break the link with status and the issue of MEPs' expenses. Status can only be decided on by Member States but Parliament has to be able to decide itself on the question of MEPs' expenses.