Expenditure of the Parliamentary Assembly for the biennium 2022-2023
- Author(s):
- Parliamentary Assembly
- Origin
- Text
adopted by the Standing Committee, acting on behalf of
the Assembly, on 28 May 2021 (see Doc. 15283, report of the Committee on Rules of Procedure, Immunities
and Institutional Affairs, rapporteur: Mr Tiny Kox).
1. In keeping with Committee of Ministers
Resolution (53) 38 on the budgetary system of the Consultative Assembly
and with Article 20 of the Financial Regulations, the Parliamentary
Assembly issues an opinion on its expenditure each year. The sums
allocated to the Assembly from the ordinary budget of the Council
of Europe cover staff and operating costs, including those of the
political groups. Since 2010 the Assembly has presented its opinion
concerning its own expenses in the form of a resolution.
2. The Covid-19 pandemic made 2020 a very complicated year for
the Council of Europe’s member States and their populations, and
the Assembly itself had to deal with the tremendous impact of the
pandemic on its own work. It managed this by adapting its procedures
and working methods, through the modification of its Rules of Procedure
by
Resolution 2349 (2020) “Modification
of the Assembly’s Rules of Procedure on alternative arrangements
for the organisation of Parliamentary Assembly part-sessions” and
Resolution 2350 (2020) “Modification
of the Assembly’s Rules of Procedure”, enabling it to hold meetings
of its committees and the enlarged Standing Committee as well as,
since January 2021, its part-sessions in an alternative way.
3. New videoconferencing technologies (in particular the KUDO
platform, with interpretation in five languages) made it possible
for the Assembly to carry out its activities effectively in 2020
and to overcome the numerous restrictions on its members’ movements.
However, organising these long-distance meetings was a costly process
for the Assembly. This additional financial burden was absorbed
by savings made in other areas of the Assembly’s spending.
4. The Assembly welcomes the Committee of Ministers’ decision
to implement a digital strategy to rise to the challenges created
by the exponential increase in requests for videoconference meetings
to ensure the continuity of its own business and that of the other
sectors of the Council of Europe in times of crisis.
5. The Assembly hopes that once the new digital strategy is in
place it will be free of the budgetary constraints linked to the
use of the KUDO platform and will have computer tools that allow
its parliamentarians to work more effectively. It has already taken
steps towards technological modernisation with the online registration
of members at committee meetings and part-sessions, along with speakers
and substitutes, a secure electronic voting system to elect judges
of the European Court of Human Rights and the highest officials of
the Organisation, and it will continue this transformation with
a view to becoming a paperless Assembly.
6. Recalling its
Resolution
2349 (2020) and the importance of guaranteeing its permanent
role as a pan-European forum for interparliamentary dialogue, the
Assembly also stresses the importance of continuing to base its
work on face-to-face meetings between its members, which allow for
rich exchanges and are indispensable for the work of a multilateral
organisation. Online meetings should be regarded as a complementary
working method that allows for greater flexibility, and as an exceptional
measure in the face of exceptional circumstances.
7. In addition, 2020 also proved to be a year for serious thinking,
which gave rise to the drafting of a new strategic framework presented
by the Secretary General of the Council of Europe, reflecting the
priorities of the Council of Europe’s mission for 2022-2025. The
Assembly, for its part, adopted
Resolution 2369 (2021) “The Assembly’s
vision for the strategic priorities of the Council of Europe” at
its April 2021 part-session.
8. The Assembly is pleased that this new four-year strategic
framework implements the multiannual budgetary planning approach
it called for over ten years ago in its
Opinion No. 272 (2009) “Budgets
of the Council of Europe for the financial year 2010”, in which
it argued that the Council of Europe should plan its work for the
long term. Doing this results in better cohesion, continuity, stability,
transparency and foreseeability.
9. As one of the two statutory bodies of the Council of Europe
and the Organisation’s political driving force, the Assembly intends
to play its role effectively, and to do this it needs additional
resources, especially after years of cost-cutting. That is why particular
attention must be paid to the Assembly’s needs in the budget for the
next budgetary period. Additional means should not be considered
as additional costs but rather as an investment that is essential
to the effectiveness of the Council of Europe.
10. In this context, the Assembly takes note that the renovation
of the Chamber of the Palais de l’Europe, provided for in the Capital
Master Plan but deferred sine die because
of the Covid-19 pandemic, will be carried out in the course of the
biennium 2022-2023, so it should be possible for it to be used at
full capacity in the second half of the four-year cycle 2022-2025.
11. The Assembly’s budget should also contribute to the viability
of the work done by the political groups, which are considered as
the backbone of the Assembly. Discussions should take place in the
Assembly on how to develop a flexible approach to the political
groups’ budgets and guarantee their financial viability, to make sure
that the creation or disappearance of a political group does not
affect the work of the existing groups. Creating one or more new
political groups increases the Assembly’s operating costs in a manner
that could only be offset by an increase in the Assembly’s budget.
In the meantime, other solutions shall also be explored as soon
as possible.
12. As a multilateral political platform, the Assembly brings
together members of parliament from the 47 member States, observer
States and partners for democracy to identify new problems and emerging challenges
and develop recommendations and good practices for addressing them.
In that context, it will intensify its efforts in the dynamic triangle
of its normative, monitoring and implementation/co-operation activities
by improving the synergies between its monitoring procedure and
those of other monitoring or advisory bodies or mechanisms in other
sectors of the Organisation.
13. The Assembly will continue to emphasise in its work the consequences
of the Covid-19 pandemic on the lives of Europe’s citizens. The
social challenges Europe’s populations are facing today as a result
of the pandemic will require more attention from the Council of
Europe and its Assembly to make sure that Europeans’ economic rights
and social protection continue to be guaranteed. The Assembly will
also continue to focus its thinking and its work on the new challenges
related to the emergence of new technologies, especially artificial
intelligence, to forestall any possible negative impact they could
have on human rights, the rule of law and democracy. It has already
provided the Committee of Ministers and the member States with a wide
range of analyses, proposals and guidelines on these subjects.
14. The Assembly will also maintain its current priorities, including
the implementation of the European Convention on Human Rights (ETS
No. 5) and monitoring the execution of judgments of the European
Court of Human Rights in all member States. It reiterates its strong
support for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) defined in
the United Nations Agenda 2030. Referring to its
Resolution 2271 (2019) and
its
Recommendation 2150
(2019) “Strengthening co-operation with the United Nations
in implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”, it
intends, through its ideas and proposals, to contribute to an accelerated
implementation of the SDGs by the member States and the success
of Agenda 2030.
15. Lastly, the Assembly is fully ready to intensify interinstitutional
co-operation with the Secretary General and the Committee of Ministers,
and with the intergovernmental sector as a whole, and to explore
every possible avenue to strengthen the overall impact of the Council
of Europe in its member States, as well as in those with observer
and partner for democracy status.
16. Appended to this Resolution is a brief explanation of the
main Assembly expenditure.
Appendix – Expenditure of the Assembly
Staff expenditure
1. This budget covers basic salaries, allowances (both
non-recurrent and periodical) and social insurance for permanent
and temporary staff of the secretariat of the Assembly.
2. The information given is based on the present structure of
the Assembly composed of nine committees. On 1 April 2021 the secretariat
had 82 permanent posts and positions and 1 specially appointed official (Secretary
General of the Parliamentary Assembly), broken down by grade as
follows:
|
Permanent posts
|
|
2 A6
|
6 B5
|
|
7 A5
|
9 B4
|
|
9 A4
|
17 B3
|
|
26 A2/A3
|
6 B2
|
3. At present the secretariat of the Assembly is organised
in such a way that the nine committees have 43 staff members at
their service (27 permanent A-grade staff and 16 permanent B-grade
staff).
4. The other 39 staff members work for the bureau of the Assembly,
the private office of the President of the Assembly, the Table Office,
the Election Observation Division, the Parliamentary Projects Support
Division, the Central Division, the Communication Division and the
Information Technology Unit.
Operational expenditure
1. The Assembly has made substantial savings in recent
years by rationalising its work to reduce its operational expenditure.
Since 2020 the return of zero real budget growth at the Organisation
(that is, budget growth only to cover inflation) has made it possible
to stabilise the resources available to the Assembly for the 2020-2021
budget period. For the next four-year budget period (biennial budgets
2022-2023 and 2024-2025) the working hypothesis must remain that
of zero real growth.
2. The functioning of the Assembly includes the following tasks:
- the holding of the ordinary
session, divided into four part-sessions (held in January, April,
June and September/October each year);
- the meetings of the Standing Committee, held three times
a year between the part-sessions of the Assembly;
- meetings held outside the four part-sessions of the Assembly
by each of the nine general committees, sub-committees and ad hoc
committees of the Assembly or the bureau;
- committee and sub-committee meetings held elsewhere than
in Strasbourg or Paris;
- conferences, symposiums, seminars and parliamentary hearings;
- activities connected with the Assembly’s interparliamentary
co-operation programme;
- visits by rapporteurs to prepare reports, including visits
to countries under the procedure to monitor the obligations and
commitments of member States, or for post-monitoring dialogue;
- election observation;
as well as modernising
its working methods with a view to becoming a paperless Assembly.
3. In 2022-2025 the Assembly will continue to carry out its priority
missions and pursue its goals in keeping with its
Resolution 2277 (2019) “Role
and mission of the Parliamentary Assembly: main challenges for the future”, and
Resolution 2369 (2021),
in particular by:
- continuing
to be the political engine of the Organisation, addressing the challenges
to human rights, the rule of law and democracy at both the national
and regional levels, giving priority to measures to guarantee the
smooth functioning of democracies under the rule of law;
- helping to effectively implement several new standards
of the Council of Europe at the national level, inter alia through
public awareness;
- ensuring the participation of parliamentarians in the
promotion and implementation of the Council of Europe’s key texts,
including the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating
Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (CETS No. 210) and
the Council of Europe Convention on the Protection of Children against
Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse (CETS No. 201);
- helping to implement the UN’s Agenda 2030 sustainable
development programme;
- helping to implement various multiannual cross-sectoral
strategies of the Council of Europe (for example in the fields of
children’s rights, gender equality and internet governance);
- participating in the Council of Europe Gender Equality
Strategy 2018-2023, including within the Assembly, with particular
emphasis on human rights and the gender dimension and the elimination
of violence against women;
- helping national parliaments to better monitor their countries’
legislation, in conformity with the provisions of the European Convention
on Human Rights, and reinforcing their capacity to monitor that
the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights are executed.
4. Where interparliamentary co-operation is concerned, the Assembly
will continue to implement the different assistance and co-operation
programmes adapted to the needs of the parliamentary institutions,
in close collaboration with its committee secretariats. It is worth
noting here that it is engaged in a joint co-operation programme
with the European Union specifically concerning the Parliament of
Morocco (which is an Assembly partner for democracy), the aim of
which is to strengthen its role as a guarantor of parliamentary democracy.
5. The Assembly warmly thanks the member States and their parliaments
(particularly Armenia, Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Finland, France,
Georgia, Luxembourg, Portugal and Switzerland) which made it possible, through
their contributions, for the Assembly to finance its activities
in 2020-2021, and also the Government of the Czech Republic, the
Václav Havel Library and the Charter 77 Foundation for their generous
contributions to the renown of the Václav Havel Human Rights Prize.
6. In addition, over the next four-year period the Assembly will
continue its search for funding for important specific projects
to be carried out by some of its committees:
- parliamentary action to promote public health and to empower
and protect children;
- the parliamentary network for the right of women to live
without violence;
- the No Hate Parliamentary Alliance and its five priority
themes: hate speech, antisemitism, Islamophobia, antigypsyism and
transphobia.
7. Concerning the electoral process, the Assembly will continue
to observe parliamentary and presidential elections in countries
under its monitoring procedure, in close collaboration with the
European Commission for Democracy through Law (Venice Commission).
8. Lastly, the Assembly will continue to support its political
groups through their budgetary allowance, calculated on a lump-sum
basis for each group for administrative assistance plus an additional
per capita allowance which varies with the membership of the group.
The Assembly should give thought to a means of moving towards a
flexible approach to the political groups’ budgets and ensuring
their financial viability, so that the creation or disappearance
of a group does not affect the functioning of the existing groups.
The creation of one or more new political groups would mean an additional
burden on the Assembly’s operational budget, which could only be
covered by increasing the Assembly’s budget.
