International

The pressure is mounting: according to a study conducted by the European Parliament, Bulgaria and the Czech Republic now just about fulfil the economic criteria for access to the eurozone. Some of my fellow MEPs believe that it’s high time that these countries ‘seized the chance’ to introduce the euro. So do we never learn? Bulgaria is as corrupt as you like and many Bulgarians don’t even want to join. That’s why it seems important that no more countries are allowed in without a referendum.

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Perhaps I’m gullible, but I always try to put questions in a straightforward fashion to increase the transparency of the European Parliament. This week I received once again a rebuttal. For the time being there will be no detailed insight into the positions which senior officials occupy after they leave the EP secretariat. This fits the pattern of allowing as little information as possible to emerge. I find this a scandalous attitude, not only on the part of the officials who write such responses, but also on the person whose ultimate responsibility this is, the EP president. Yes, you guessed it, it’s that man again: Martin Schulz. But I’m not going to let it rest there.

I’ve already drawn attention to the fact that EU officials are paid regal salaries and expenses. This usually stirs up a storm of protest, but I haven’t changed my position. Not long ago, however, I discovered that this tale has a strange twist in it: when an EU official takes his or her pension, he or she continues to pay the special low tax rate to the European Commission, no matter where they settle. There’s even a special agreement with non-member state Switzerland to avoid ex-officials having to pay double taxation, to the EU and to the Swiss. In my view this has to change and change quickly. Retired EU officials should pay normal tax, just as everyone else has to in the countries in which they live.

The motto of the European Union is ‘Unity in Diversity’. Although the European Commission is always harping on about ‘European’ culture, they are keenest on strengthening national or regional artistic expressions. They continue, however, to think in terms of the ‘market’. This is evident from the idea of facilitating access to national films and other audio-visual works by adding subtitles. For this to happen, subtitling would have to become much cheaper. And how is this to be achieved? By setting translators from the entire world one against the other, having them bid for work via so-called ‘crowdsourcing’. We will soon perhaps have more subtitled works, but this will be achieved by exploiting a group of professionals and putting the quality of subtitling in jeopardy. It’s typical of Brussels and something about which I intend to take action and not of course let ride.