European Parliament
Raschhofer (NI ),
in writing
(DE)
On behalf of the Members belonging to the Austrian Freedom Party, I wish to explain our vote on the van Hulten report. The reason why we voted in favour of Amendment No 40 is that we advocate a new Bureau decision leaving no loopholes permitting additional mileage allowances and payments for extra time. We therefore advocate that the Bureau decision of 8 May 2003 should be revised to allow for the reimbursement of costs actually incurred. We voted against Amendment No 1, tabled by the Group for a Europe of Democracies and Diversities, believing as we do that it could be interpreted in such a way as to facilitate the retention of the 28 May 2003 decision on costs, with its hidden lump-sum allowances.
In the final vote, though, we nevertheless voted against the report, as it fails to deal with such issues as the demand for a single venue for the European Parliament or the abolition of allowances for Fridays in Strasbourg. Having considered all the arguments, I wish to emphasise that the decision to reimburse only those travel expenses that are actually incurred met with our wholehearted support, although, at the same time, I regret the failure to take on board many of the amendments.

