Simplesmente
incompreensível e escandalosamente irresponsável …
OVOODOCORVO
–--------------------------------------------------------------
New
growth and jobs plan … for Parliament staff
Party
blocs in the assembly push for new political advisers, even as they
complain there isn’t enough to do.
By
Maïa de La Baume
and
Quentin Ariès
9/21/16, 5:34 AM CET
The European
Parliament’s main political factions plan to boost their staff
ranks in a move critics say contradicts the assembly’s commitment
to reducing its budget and undercuts MEP complaints that they don’t
have enough work to do.
The proposal, which
includes the creation of 76 new posts to “reinforce the personnel
of the political groups,” is included in one of several amendments
tabled this month by the center-right European People’s Party and
center-left Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats to an
upcoming report on Parliament spending for 2017. The measures are
expected to be voted on in the budget committee next week, before
being considered by the full assembly in October.
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With the support of
both of those political groups, which together make up a majority of
the Parliament, the staff increase is likely to pass easily. The new
jobs would be spread proportionately among all the Parliament’s
political groups. The positions are hired at the discretion of each
political group but the salaries are paid by EU taxpayers.
Welle ‘not happy’
The move is seen as
a direct rebuke of the Parliament’s top bureaucrat, Secretary
General Klaus Welle, who has tried to shift power away from the
assembly’s political groups and toward its nonpartisan
administration and committee staff.
“Political groups
were not happy at all because Welle took power away from them,”
said one Parliament official. “That’s why they are reacting now.”
“Giving
more money to political groups goes against my political DNA”
— Indrek Tarand, Estonian MEP
Welle, who has been
on a crusade to make the legislature more like the U.S. Congress by
beefing up its professional staff, is “not happy about it at all,”
the official said, because “he won’t be able to create any new
post himself.”
Welle did not
respond to requests Tuesday for comment about the proposal.
The main political
groups defended the plan.
“We are in favor,
although it seems controversial, to create 76 more posts [for
political groups], because the Parliament is not only an
administration, it is first and foremost a political organization,”
said Jean-Paul Denanot, a French MEP in charge of the budget issue
for the Socialist bloc.
Other groups took
aim at the proposal, saying it would send the wrong message at a time
when the EU is calling on many countries to show fiscal austerity.
“It’s unfair in
times of financial crises,” said Indrek Tarand, an Estonian MEP in
the Greens group who is authoring the Parliament’s spending report
but said he would vote against the staff amendment. “Giving more
money to political groups goes against my political DNA. I would
prefer having young civil servants who passed an EU exam to become
experts rather than politically appointed people who are loyal to the
political bigwigs.
‘Not serious’
The Parliament’s
eight political groups have their own staff, which include
assistants, secretaries and senior political advisers to work with
MEPs and their personal aides on key policy areas. According to
internal figures seen by POLITICO, political groups have more
employees than MEPs. For example, the EPP group has 215 MEPs, 293
staffers and 53 temporary jobs, while the Socialists and Democrats
group has 189 MEPs, 253 employees and 60 temporary staffers.
The amendment
empowering groups to hire 76 more staffers has been controversial for
many Parliament officials and MEPs involved in the 2017 budget. The
push to beef up political staff comes as other EU institutions have
made efforts to reduce spending and cut their staff in the wake of
the financial crisis.
In addition, the
move to hire more staff is seemingly at odds with complaints from
MEPs that they are being sidelined in EU decision making and short of
work as the European Commission makes fewer legislative proposals in
an era of “Better Regulation.”
“Honestly,
we do not look serious here,” said another parliamentary staffer
familiar with the budget talks.
The Parliament has
come under fire in recent months over other internal spending
proposals, including hiring an in-house limousine service for MEPs —
justified by the assembly’s leaders as a security measure — and
staff for the Parliament’s fitness center.
In 2013, the
European Parliament was required to trim 5 percent of its staff over
five years. But it fell far behind other EU institutions in meeting
its staff cutting targets.
The EPP and S&D
groups have introduced other amendments calling for the reduction of
60 posts in the Parliament’s administration, as well as 20 other
positions that would be shifted from the Parliament to other EU
bodies such as the Committee of the Regions. The amendments also
include the hiring of 35 more people to “enhance security in the
institutions.”
In 2013, the
European Parliament was required to trim 5 percent of its staff over
five years. But it fell far behind other EU institutions in meeting
its staff cutting targets. In a 2015 agreement reached between the
European Parliament and the Council, the assembly said it was
“committed to continue the reduction of the total number of posts
in its establishment plan and to complete it by 2019.”
According to the
agreement, the Parliament needs to cut 179 staffers by 2019, which
includes a target of 60 fewer jobs in 2017.
Parliament officials
said they did not see why political groups should hire so many more
new people as there are already as many as 100 vacant posts, which
they are filling with contractual agents. “These jobs don’t
require any exam, and groups offer temporary contracts,” a
Parliament official said.
Welle has created
new bodies aimed at providing nonpartisan resources for
parliamentarians. He helped set up the European Parliamentary
Research Service, an in-house think-tank that functions like the U.S.
Congressional Research Service.
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