9
May
2023
Watch
Discharge 2021 (continuation of debate)
Madam President, thank you to the Commission and to the ECA for being here. I’ve got one minute and a half; there’s too much to talk about, but we do absolutely need to talk about Parliament’s own voluntary pension scheme. Closed now, but financed from allowances that were meant for office supplies and reportedly investing in the arms, tobacco, mining and fossil fuel industries. ‘What’s not to like?’, you could say. Why do we need to talk about that right now? Well, because it’s situation is dramatic financially. We’re talking about a EUR 310 million gap. So, for the translators, yes, I said 310 million. And because the leadership of this Parliament is set to take a decision on the scheme’s future soon, the Parliament’s Budgetary Control Committee has repeatedly called on Parliament's bureau to find a feasible, legal and fair solution to the problem that we have here. Now, the study on this that I commissioned concluded that while Parliament can’t completely get rid of the fund from one day to the next, what it can do is take steps that prioritise taxpayers over scheme members. And that’s what the Bureau needs to do now: stand up to the scheme members, some of them extremely active and vocal behind the scenes. Some of them, ironically, called Nigel Farage and Marine Le Pen. Now, at the end of the day, we’re talking here about a supplementary extra pension scheme for all of its beneficiaries. Let’s be honest, it’s 2023, and most people in Europe don’t even dare to dream of a steady income when they retire, let alone at the levels that this fund currently guarantees.