International

SP activists protest against the EU's waste of money

It is typical of the way in which the European institutions work – right in the middle of the recess they bring forward a proposal for a new direct European tax, while uttering not a word about cuts in their own spending. We will shortly be beginning work in the new European Parliament committee set up to consider the EU's multi-annual budget. In my view we should not be discussing new taxes: I will be arguing for the scrapping of unnecessary spending, on which a number of ideas came to me during my recent holiday.

As I wrote in my last weeklog before that holiday, I had used the last few weeks to go through the enormous pile of reading which had accumulated during the session. In Brussels we always try to find a balance between working within the European Parliament on the one hand and with our contacts in the Netherlands on the other, because we clearly don't want to find ourselves trapped inside the EP. At the same time we want the SP to be seen in the Parliament as a serious party. We know what we're about and we want to convey that, and so we can't evade the responsibility to explore the many issues that come up.

Even after a year as a Euro-MP I am surprised by the number of reports from the Secretariat of the European Parliament which I find in my mailbox. And these aren't just short summaries of bulky Commission documents, for example. No, the Secretariat writes all kinds of reports on subjects on which the Commission might be bringing forward proposals.

For instance, amongst my pile of papers was a report of almost 200 pages dealing with the way in which member states could better share out responsibility for asylum seekers. An interesting subject, but I wonder how many working hours and how much money was invested in the report's preparation.

In my opinion we could make substantial savings in relation to European officials who in essence reproduce each other's work. The member states, represented in the Council, also have their own secretariat. And that secretariat too writes its own reports. Which means that the European Commission and at least two separate secretariats perform research into the same subjects and then publish reports on them. This could be done more efficiently. As the SP, we see it as important to do our own research, as we have recently done on care providers, the police, and other matters. For this purpose, the SP group in the European Parliament has a modest budget. In my view, the EP Secretariat does not need to add to this a whole lot of rather abstract studies. This is the work of the Commission, and we should let them get on with it. In response we, as Euro-MPs, can determine our position in relation to Commission proposals, making use for example of contributions from NGOs, with no need for such superfluous reports.