Brussels, 11/03/2008 (Agence Europe) - The European Parliament will try swiftly to bring some order, at least before the end of its term of office (which ends in 2009) to the murky system of payment of parliamentary assistants. This is not the first attempt at change and nothing can be taken for granted because there is disagreement over how to remedy the problems brought to light in a report by the internal auditor (EUROPE 9617). Some MEPs, including those from the Greens/EFA group, continue to call for a European statute for MEPs' assistants, while others, among whom the leader of the EPP-ED group, Joseph Daul, argue for greater clarity in contracts of employment and enhanced supervision of this expenditure by the EP.
The EP Bureau decided on Monday 10 March to endorse the wish of the Conference of the Presidents of the political groups: 1) to apply current rules: 15 months ago, the Bureau of the EP adopted a number of decisions which, hitherto, have not been acted on (drawing up a scale of assistants' salaries, allowing social dialogue between assistants and the MEPs who employ them, and setting up an office to ask the Belgian authorities that assistants working in Belgium, but not subject to Belgian law, are seen as posted workers for at least five years); 2) to entrust the Secretary General with a mandate to present the new statute. According to the Greens/EFA group's interpretation, the idea would be to make assistants working in Brussels contract agents, who would become part of the European civil service (these persons' rights would, however, be “piloted” by the EP). There would be only one kind of contract and one salary scale. For assistants recruited in constituencies, the EP would have paying agents who would pay out salaries and expenses. “We can back the Secretary General's proposals, given that we put them on the table nearly ten years ago,” commented Gérard Onesta (Greens/EFA, France).
The aim is to complete the reform before the new Parliament is sworn in, in 2009. “We in the Greens/EFA group, do not intend to let this thing poison the future European election campaign, because if anti-Europeans were elected because of this, it would mean that for five years the political balance in Parliament would be altered, simply because the Community institutions were not able to tidy matters up,” said Onesta. He expects internal deadlock because of a bad habit that, for some, could prove difficult to forget. Above all, however, outside the EP, some EU member states (because the Commission reform proposal goes to the Council) do not want to “swell the European organisational flow chart, to fatten this Brussels monster further,” Onesta said.
For Joseph Daul, EPP-ED group leader: - how the system works has to be redefined; - contracts of employment have to be clear; - and EP supervision has to be early and more regular. However, there is no question for him of a European statute for assistants, given that there are 27 different social legislations. “I don't want such a statute. Our assistants are not civil servants,” he said.
It would appear that the questionable practices highlighted by the internal auditor might only be linked to about ten MEPs. “There is probably only about 10% of black sheep,” commented Onesta. Bart Staes (Greens/EFA, Belgium) said that his group and the PES had set down amendments in the Parliamentary budget control committee calling for a delay on the discharge in respect of the implementation of the EP 2006 budget. This was a way of maintaining the pressure on the Bureau to bring rapid reform of the system of payment of assistants. (L.C.)