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Resolution 2288 (2019)
Expenditure of the Parliamentary Assembly for the biennium 2020-2021
1. In accordance
with Committee of Ministers Resolution (53) 38 on the budgetary
system of the Consultative Assembly and Article 24 of the Financial
Regulations, the Parliamentary Assembly issues an opinion concerning
the expenditure relating to its operation. The amounts allocated
to the Assembly in the ordinary budget of the Council of Europe
cover its expenditure on staff and the costs associated with its
own functioning, including the functioning of its political groups.
Since 2010, the Assembly has presented the opinion concerning its
own expenditure in the form of a resolution.
2. The preparation of the Assembly’s opinion on the budget and
priorities of the Council of Europe and of the resolution on its
own expenditure for the biennium 2020-2021 is taking place in a
strange context. The Assembly is required to comment on Council
of Europe priorities on the basis of the participation of the 47 member
States in the Council of Europe’s budget, whereas the reality of
the situation should lead us to present an opinion based on the
actual situation facing the Council of Europe, in other words without
the funding from one of the five major contributors, namely the
Russian Federation. The Assembly recalls that the Council of Europe
is an international organisation of a political nature, without
an economic or gainful aim, set up by sovereign States and which
relies on contributions by its member States for its funding.
3. The Assembly is aware of the challenges of the budget for
the next biennium, given the uncertainty surrounding the Russian
Federation’s non-payment of its contributions to the Council of
Europe’s budgets, and has taken note of the Secretary General of
the Council of Europe’s contingency plan of a €32.4 million reduction
for the ordinary budget spread over a three-year period starting
in the second half of 2019. In this context, the Assembly has been
asked to proceed with a 15% reduction in its budget.
4. The Assembly points out that, at the meeting between the Secretary
General of the Council of Europe and its Committee on Rules of Procedure,
Immunities and Institutional Affairs in January 2019, the General Rapporteur
on the Budget made a proposal on identifying alternatives to a reduction
in the budget, in particular the assignment of debt to a third party,
a proposal which the Assembly’s Presidential Committee supported
at its meeting on 24 January 2019.
5. Before agreeing to any other cuts in its budget, the Assembly
therefore calls for all alternative options, including the assignment
of debt to a third party, to be studied seriously by the Secretary
General and the Committee of Ministers.
6. Having made these preliminary comments, the Assembly refers
to its Resolution 2277
(2019) “Role and mission of the Parliamentary Assembly: main
challenges for the future” and recalls that it must continue to
be the political driving force of the Council of Europe, notably
by addressing challenges to human rights, the rule of law and democracy,
both at national and at regional level, as well as the societal
evolutions faced by its member States. As a forum for sharing best
practices and experience, the Assembly provides national parliaments
and States with the support and guidance they need to ensure well-functioning
democracy and respect for the rule of law.
7. The Assembly’s action ties in with the three pillars of the
Council of Europe’s Programme and Budget, namely human rights, the
rule of law and democracy. Its work must contribute to the implementation
of various cross-sectoral multi-annual strategies adopted by the
Council of Europe (in particular in the areas of children’s rights,
gender equality and internet governance) and, where appropriate,
the Assembly may propose new standards in new areas or on emerging
issues such as new technologies, digitisation or artificial intelligence.
8. The Assembly supports the efficient implementation at national
level of Council of Europe standards and conventions and of the
conclusions of the various monitoring bodies and mechanisms, in
particular regarding the European Convention on Human Rights (ETS
No. 5) and the role of national parliaments as guarantors of human
rights in Europe.
9. The Assembly also encourages parliamentary involvement in
the promotion and implementation of other key Council of Europe
instruments by which it sets great store, namely the Council of
Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women
and Domestic Violence (CETS No. 210, “Istanbul Convention”), the
Council of Europe Convention on the Protection of Children against
Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse (CETS No. 201, “Lanzarote Convention”)
and the Council of Europe Convention on the Counterfeiting of Medical
Products and Similar Crimes involving Threats to Public Health (CETS
No. 211, “Medicrime Convention”).
10. The Assembly, referring to its Resolution 2271 (2019) and Recommendation
2150 (2019) on strengthening co-operation with the United Nations
in implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, considers
that various aspects of its work contribute to the achievement of
this agenda and will help member States to assess progress when
preparing their national reviews. In the context of the biennium 2020-2021,
special effort will be made to increase parliamentary involvement
in this process, to translate the Sustainable Development Goals
into national action and raise the electorate’s awareness about
the impact they have on their daily lives.
11. Gender equality and gender mainstreaming will be key aspects
of all Assembly policies and activities, as provided for in the
Council of Europe Gender Equality Strategy 2018-2023. There will
be a special focus on eliminating violence against women, and the
Assembly will continue its activities aimed at promoting and protecting
children’s rights, promoting diversity and eliminating discrimination
on all grounds.
12. In the area of election observation, the Assembly will continue
to observe parliamentary and presidential elections in countries
under its monitoring and post-monitoring dialogue procedures, in
close co-operation with the European Commission for Democracy through
Law (Venice Commission). Special attention will be devoted to dispute-resolution
procedures and the funding of political parties and election campaigns,
as well as the abuse of public resources for the benefit of ruling
parties.
13. The fight against corruption and money laundering will remain
on the agenda of the committees, bearing in mind the implementation
of the recommendations of the Group of States against Corruption
(GRECO) following the report by the Independent Investigation Body
on the allegations of corruption within the Parliamentary Assembly
(IBAC).
14. In the area of inter-parliamentary co-operation, the Assembly
will continue implementing various assistance and co-operation programmes
suited to the needs of parliamentary institutions, in close co-operation
with the committee secretariats. It will continue to hold multilateral
seminars for parliamentarians and parliamentary committee staff
on supervision of the execution of judgments of the European Court
of Human Rights.
15. Other co-operation activities will be carried out concerning,
for instance, the parliamentary dimension of European Union–Council
of Europe joint programmes, such as phase three of the South Programme
(SPIII), which will end in 2020, and the inter-parliamentary co-operation
programme for Morocco (2018-2021). The Assembly will continue its
work in connection with the action plan drawn up for Ukraine and
the component on strengthening parliamentary capacity to implement
Council of Europe standards and policies in Ukraine (Phase II) and
also the plan for Georgia, subject to available resources.
16. The Assembly will continue its policy of seeking financial
resources from governments and parliaments with a view to implementing
in 2020-2021 its programme entitled Promoting European and International Standards
through Parliamentary Action, with particular focus on public health,
empowering and protecting children, women’s right to live free from
violence and the No Hate Parliamentary Alliance.
17. In this connection, the Assembly wishes to express its sincere
appreciation to those member States and their parliaments (in particular
Armenia, Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, France, Germany, Luxembourg,
the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia and Switzerland) which,
through their contributions, have enabled it (during the biennium
2018-2019) to finance Assembly activities, and to the Czech Government,
the Václav Havel Library and the Charter 77 Foundation, which contribute
generously to the outreach and prestige of the Václav Havel Human
Rights Prize.
18. In the coming biennium, the Assembly will continue to carry
out the activities provided for in its Rules of Procedure, notably
by holding various elections in accordance with statutory and convention
requirements (Deputy Secretary General, Secretary General of the
Assembly, judges of the European Court of Human Rights) and promoting
the various European distinctions it awards (Europe Prize, Václav
Havel Human Rights Prize and the Museum Prize).
19. In terms of external communication and visibility, the Assembly
will enrich its website and enable parliamentarians and all other
users to download the video recordings of debates during plenary
sessions. The Assembly will also continue to develop new tools and
content for its accounts on Facebook (five separate pages) and Twitter
(six accounts), as well as audiovisual activities such as the television
magazine, “The Session”, its own YouTube channel and a new weekly
activities e-newsletter for members.
20. Regarding the efforts requested of the Assembly, it is worth
noting that a 15% reduction in the Assembly’s budget compared to
the appropriations foreseen in 2019 represents a cut of some €2.2 million (including
€1.4 million on staff expenditure). It should be noted that redundancy
payments for the early departure of staff are not included in the
contingency plan, except for an amount set aside for this purpose
in the framework of the Programme and Budget 2018-2019.
21. The implementation of the contingency plan means the freezing
of permanent posts in the Assembly’s secretariat (with the 15% scenario)
and a substantial reduction of appropriations to employ temporary
staff.
22. The required savings in the operational activities budget
for the year 2020-2021 could be achieved through:
- a possible change of the method of preparation of verbatim reports of plenary sessions;
- the possible suppression of Russian as a working language of the Assembly (in line with Rule 28.3 of the Rules of Procedure);
- possible further reductions in interpretation in working languages provided in committees;
- the possible reorganisation of plenary sessions of the Assembly (fewer days of plenary sittings of the Assembly per year).
23. For the past several years the Assembly has contributed to
the efforts called for to remain within a zero-nominal-growth budget.
In 2018, the Assembly reduced its expenditure by €1.5 million following
Turkey’s decision to discontinue its major contributor status. Over
the last ten years, the share of the Assembly's budget in the Council
of Europe's ordinary budget has decreased from 7.2% in 2009 to 6.5%
in 2019 and the number of posts in the Assembly secretariat has
decreased from 94 in 2009 to 84 in 2019.
24. The Assembly reiterates its call on member States to return
to zero real growth, that is to say at least to include inflation
in their contributions, so as to stabilise the Organisation’s resources
and thereby enable the Council of Europe to continue to fulfil its
mandate for member States.
Appended to this resolution are:
i. a brief explanation of the main items of expenditure;
ii. a table setting out the Assembly’s work programme according to the results-based budgeting method.
Appendix 1 – Expenditure of the Assembly
(open)Staff expenditure
1. This appropriation corresponds
to the basic salaries, allowances (non-recurring and periodic) and
social cover of the permanent staff of the secretariat of the Assembly
and of temporary staff.
2. The information provided here is based on the current structure
of the Assembly comprising 9 committees. As at 1 May 2019, the secretariat
comprised 84 permanent posts and positions, and 1 specially appointed
official (Secretary General of the Parliamentary Assembly), broken
down as follows:
|
Permanent posts |
|
|---|---|
|
2 A6 |
1 B6 |
|
7 A5 |
5 B5 |
|
9 A4 |
10 B4 |
|
23 A2/A3 |
17 B3 |
|
6 B2 |
|
|
Positions |
|
|
3 A2/A3 |
1 B3 |
3. At present, the secretariat
of the Assembly is organised so that the 9 Assembly committees have
46 staff working for them (comprising 29 A-grade and 17 B-grade
permanent staff members).
4. The remaining 38 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.
5. Since 2009, due to the zero-growth policy in nominal terms
and following Turkey's decision in 2018 to discontinue its major
contributor status, the Assembly has reduced by 10 the number of
its posts or positions.
6. Within the contingency plan, out of a current total of 84
permanent posts and positions (44 A and 40 B), several would have
to be frozen already in 2019 (see the tables below):
|
Number of posts to be frozen – Scenario 15% budgetary cuts |
|||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
2019 |
2020 |
2021 |
2022 |
TOTAL |
|
|
Compulsory retirements |
1 |
- |
3 |
3 |
7 |
|
Other posts |
2 |
4 |
2 |
- |
8 |
|
TOTAL |
3 |
4 |
5 |
3 |
15 |
Supplies, services and other operational expenditure
1. In recent years, the Assembly
has made substantial savings by rationalising its work to reduce
its operational expenditure. In particular in 2018, following Turkey’s
decision to discontinue its major contributor status, the Assembly
had to cut its budget by 9.47%, which led to the ending of the use
of Turkish as a working language at the Assembly, as the funding
for it was no longer available.
2. The functioning of the Assembly covers the following range
of tasks:
- holding of the ordinary session divided into four part-sessions (taking place in January, April, June and September/October of each year);
- meetings of the Standing Committee between the part-sessions, held at a frequency of three meetings per year;
- meetings of the Bureau and the Presidential Committee;
- meetings, during and outside the four part-sessions of the Assembly, for each of the nine general committees, sub-committees and ad hoc committees of the Assembly and the Bureau;
- conferences, colloquies, seminars and parliamentary hearings;
- activities coming under the Assembly’s programme of inter-parliamentary co-operation;
- visits by rapporteurs in connection with the preparation of reports, including to countries subject to monitoring of the honouring of member States’ obligations and commitments or to the post-monitoring dialogue;
- election observation.
3. In 2020-2021, the Assembly will continue to carry out its
priority tasks and pursue its objectives in accordance with its Resolution 2277 (2019), namely:
- continuing to be the political driving force of the Council of Europe, notably by addressing challenges to human rights, the rule of law and democracy, both at national and at regional level, while giving priority to measures to ensure the proper functioning of democracy and respect for the rule of law;
- supporting the efficient implementation of several groundbreaking Council of Europe standards at national level, through public awareness raising;
- ensuring parliamentary involvement in the promotion and implementation of key Council of Europe instruments, in particular the Istanbul Convention, the Lanzarote Convention and the Medicrime Convention;
- contributing to the achievement of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development;
- contributing to the implementation of various cross-sectoral multi-annual Council of Europe strategies (in particular in the areas of children’s rights, equality between women and men and internet governance);
- taking part in the Council of Europe Gender Equality Strategy for 2018-2023, including within the Assembly, with a special focus on human rights and the gender dimension, as well as on eliminating violence against women;
- helping national parliaments to check the conformity of legislation with the provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights more effectively and strengthen their ability to monitor the execution of the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights.
4. In addition, the Assembly will continue over the next biennium
to seek financing for specific major projects to be carried out
by some of its committees:
- promoting public health through parliamentary action and empowering and protecting children through this action;
- the Parliamentary Network Women Free from Violence;
- the No Hate Parliamentary Alliance and its five priority themes: hate speech, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, anti-Gypsyism, homophobia and transphobia.
5. With regard to the other co-operation activities, the Assembly
will continue its awareness-raising work among parliaments concerning
their role in supervising the execution of judgments of the European
Court of Human Rights and its specific co-operation activities in
connection with the parliamentary dimension of several European
Union–Council of Europe joint programmes, such as phase three of
the South Programme (SPIII), which is due to end in 2020, the inter-parliamentary
co-operation programme for Morocco (2018-2021) and the action plans
for Georgia and Ukraine.
6. Regarding the electoral process, the Assembly will continue
to observe parliamentary and presidential elections in countries
under its monitoring and post-monitoring dialogue procedures, in
close co-operation with the Venice Commission. Special attention
will be devoted to dispute-resolution procedures and the funding
of political parties and election campaigns, and the abuse of public
resources for the benefit of ruling parties.
7. Lastly, the Assembly will also continue to support its political
groups through their allocation, which is based on a lump sum for
secretarial assistance paid to each of the existing groups along
with an additional per capita amount which varies according to their
membership.
8. To sum up, the draft budget for 2020 and 2021 is the same
as the budget approved by the Committee of Ministers for 2019 (it
does not take account of the three-year contingency plan for the
ordinary budget which might take effect on 1 July 2019). It amounts
to:
|
Year |
Staff |
Other expenditure |
Total |
|---|---|---|---|
|
2020 |
€9 690 900 |
€4 987 900 |
€14 678 800 |
|
2021 |
€9 690 900 |
€4 987 900 |
€14 678 800 |
9. If the contingency plan were
to be implemented, the requested reduction in the budget of the
Assembly would be the following for the years from 2019 to 2022.
15% reduction
|
Year |
Staff |
Other expenditure |
Total |
|---|---|---|---|
|
2019 |
–€214 800 |
–€118 800 |
–€333 600 |
|
2020 |
–€504 100 |
–€278 900 |
–€783 000 |
|
2021 |
–€388 700 |
–€394 400 |
–€783 100 |
|
2022 |
–€324 200 |
–€324 200 |
|
|
TOTAL |
–€1 431 800 |
–€792 100 |
–€2 223 900 |
Appendix 2 – Functioning of the Assembly
(open)|
Intervention logic |
Performance indicators |
|---|---|
|
Expected result 1 – Sessions/committees The part-sessions, committee meetings, hearings and conferences were organised by an efficient secretariat in line with members’ expectations. |
Percentage of registered speakers able to take the floor (target: 70%). Number of meetings per committee held each year. Number of conferences and hearings organised with committee meetings. Degree of satisfaction of parliamentarians about the assistance provided before, during and after part-sessions and committee meetings. |
|
Expected result 2 – Co-operation Parliaments of relevant member States have benefited from inter-parliamentary co-operation programmes implemented to respond to specific needs and priorities of the Council of Europe and national parliaments. |
Number of co-operation programmes drawn up. Evidence of the quality and relevance of organised activities. |
|
Expected result 3 – Election observation The Assembly and parliaments of relevant member States have received observation reports which evaluate parliamentary or presidential elections and include targeted recommendations. |
Number of election observation mission reports submitted to the Assembly. Evidence of improvement (change in national law and practices) between visits. |
|
Expected result 4 – Communication and visibility Public opinion in member States has been informed of the activities of the Assembly and of its members through traditional and social media. |
Number of articles published in print media in which activities of the Assembly are reflected. Percentage increase in the number of external users of the Assembly’s website. Number of interviews via Media Box. |