2001 discharge: EC general budget, European Parliament

The committee adopted the report by Bart STAES (Greens/EFA, B) recommending that Parliament be granted discharge in relation to its 2001 budget. The accompanying resolution looked at a number of issues and made various recommendations. It noted the costs involved in maintaining three places of work, which would increase as a result of enlargement, and underlined the loss of efficiency for Members occasioned by travelling time, the regular moving of archives etc. from one place of work to another. The report therefore urged the Convention on the Future of Europe to "discuss the desirability of concentrating the activities of the European Parliament in one place (...) and to ensure that the European Constitution stipulates that the European Parliament and its members can themselves decide where the seat of Parliament should be and where it wants to carry out its work". The report also noted that the Strasbourg session "inadvertently discriminates against part-time employees, the majority of whom tend to be women". Elsewhere in the report the committee: noted the high utilisation of resources allocated to Parliament (99.3% in 2001); criticised the fact that not enough women had been promoted to senior positions in Parliament; pointed out that the resources allocated to information and communication were paltry (only EUR 25.8 million in 2001, i.e. 2.58% of the total EP budget); called for the adoption of a Statute for Assistants; and drew attention to the recommendations made by the Courts of Auditors ·that allowances for travel and subsistence should reflect actual travel costs and the real duration of the mission.· �