Through discharge procedure the EP Committee on Budgetary Control examines the general budget of the European Parliament once a year. The work of the EP Secretary General and the civil servants has to be evaluated critically. This week the Committee voted upon the draft report by the Green MEP Bart Staes on discharge of the implementation of the EP budget. The Belgian MEP is the rapporteur this year. But once again it was revealed that critical control does not enjoy majority in the European Parliament. More than 30 critical passages were disapproved by the red-black “coalition”. In the end the report was made unrecognizable to such an extent that even the rapporteur abstained from voting. “My baby was aborted before birth”, he mentioned resignedly.
Even the other parliamentary groups commented critically on the approach of the red-black unity. Yet, the left-wing Danish MEP Søren Bo Søndergaard defined it as “kidnapping the Parliament”. The German EPP-member Ingeborg Grässle played a leading role in mutilating the draft report. In more than 40 amendments she demanded that concrete parts are deleted. She was successful to a great extent. This proved to be advantageous to Klaus Welle, the Secretary General of the European Parliament. The supreme civil servant of the Parliament is coincidentally a German christian-democrat and even the former Secretary General of the European People’s Party. There are rumours that he was involved in drafting the amendment proposals. This is how the Grand Coalition understands budgetary control.
Ingeborg Grässle argued that criticism is inappropriate since many improvements had already been applied. That is not entirely wrong. But the existing improvements result from the work of critical thinkers who permanently raise sensitive issues. And there is still enough to be done. For that reason we tabled a number of amendments, including seven amendments on the dubious competitive tendering procedure of the parliamentary buildings D4 and D5. In the spirit of Grand Coalition they were named after Willy Brandt and Jószef Antall. But what happened to our amendments? Exactly, they were rejected by the red-black “coalition”. A new attempt will be made during the next plenary voting. But in that case a roll-call vote will be held in order to make evident which MEPs take their work seriously and who do not.
