Committee on Budgets Ordinary meeting
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BUDG European Parliament
Follow its sittings
Andrzej Halicki
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for this information. I don't think we have to repeat it. I understand the money is needed. We will still have 245,000,000 available for further mobilization throughout the year.
So I would like to support the request, and the potential vote could be on our budget meeting on March 17. So, as a reporter, I would like to propose adopting this request.
Janusz Lewandowski
Thank you. Time for shadows, and we are starting with S and D, Mr. Niels Usakov, please. One minute.
Nils Ušakovs
You, chair. Our group obviously supports the transfer itself for understandable reasons, but I would like to express a general type of concern because the first mobilization of the emergency aid reserve will already use 60% of all the preparations available, and we are only in March. And, taking into account the speed, the list of geopolitical challenges is evolving. I would like to ask a question. At this rate, probably, the reserve will be spent not by the end of the year, but sometime in between. So what do we do to plan the commission and the parliament when the reserve is spent at this rate, and it can be quite soon?
Thank you.
Janusz Lewandowski
Thank you. Now I am checking the attendance list. Otherwise, we don't see patriots. Perhaps catch the ice later. But now, for ECR, not quite.
So, for renewal, Miss Boss, no?
Janusz Lewandowski
Good. Therefore, we can proceed to checking the greens now. Stefanuta is not available. I'm afraid. For the left, Olivera is not present.
For ES and E, we can jump into "Catch the Eye," and as usual, the candidate is Madam Fuhrer.
Angéline Furet
You, chair. Not so usual. I share it with my very good colleague, Mr. Sanchez. But for this fight, it will be me. I will speak in French.
This.
Angéline Furet
The decision is a budgetary transfer that is being approved in a single vote. We're being asked to approve €350,000,000. So, 100,000,000 for Ukraine, 125,500,000 for Sudan, 67,500,000 for Syria, and 58,000,000 for Afghanistan. Now, with these types of sums, we're being told either we have to accept everything, and there's a risk that European money ends up with the Taliban in Afghanistan to head a militia in Syria, or we say no to this aid because we're talking about an Islamist regime.
Sorry.
Slower, please. Slower.
Thank you.
Andrée Taurinya
So I was saying either we say no to this age, which I think would be understandable as we're talking about Islamist regimes, but then we're just being accused of being against aid to Ukraine. I think we need to work in a serious way here. Nobody is against Ukraine or the Ukrainian people. But by using this methodology, it's as if Ukraine is a Trojan horse to push through other, more dubious financing. At Ukraine is legitimate, so it should be presented in a separate transfer so Parliament can vote clearly and democratically.
Thank you.
Janusz Lewandowski
Will any candidates catch the eye? Not quite. Therefore, it is time for Mrs. Filipkova to answer the questions.
Speaker 2
Thank you very much indeed for the support from the rapporteur for the questions. So, as Mr. Usikov mentioned that it is indeed true that we are exhausting more than 50% to 60% of the reserve. And unfortunately, as is the case in later years, it is not a question of whether we will need to mobilize the reserve, but rather when and for which crisis, which will emerge as the most urgent one that needs support. So, as usual, we also have an operational reserve of about NOK 100,000,000 that we can use immediately for anything that comes up urgently.
And then, as I said, we will probably come in September or early October with the mobilization of the remaining amount of the reserve once we have identified which regions really need additional support beyond what we have already planned. Thank you very much.
Janusz Lewandowski
Thank you. This is the end of this point. The major concern, of course, was about consuming 60% of the reserve at this time of the year. But now, voting time, I see people coming, maps are coming. Therefore, we could start voting very soon, but it is not going to take very long.
As usual, checking the forum at the beginning, I am opening the vote. We are okay with the forum. We can start. And this is on the guidelines for the 2027 budget, section three, commission. Compromise number one.
Who? Raise. Start with.
The two. Compromise two.
Janusz Lewandowski
It is two. 2. We are starting with compromise two. Raise your hands. Who is in favor?
Who is against it? Abstentions are approved. Compromise three: who is in favor? Against. Abstentions are approved.
A lot was covered. Therefore, we are moving. I am also moving to compromise four, which is in favor, against abstentions. Approved. Again, many amendments cover it. Therefore, we are moving to compromise five.
Who is in favor, against, or abstaining? Approved? And the last one is I'm looking for compromise six: who is in favor, against, and abstentions? Again, the approved final vote. Compromise one. One is okay.
I am lost in this paper. Yes. Compromise one. Who is in favor, against, or abstaining? Approved? Therefore, the final vote is going to be a roll call vote.
I am opening the vote. Closing the vote. 20 in favor, 6 against, 2 abstentions. That means that we have guidelines approved in this vote, and this is the end of the voting session. Good morning again.
We are resuming after the voting time, and this is for point number 5, estimates of revenue and expenditure for 2027, section 1, European Parliament. This is our second exchange of views on how to prepare our position. First, it was in the presence of Vice Presidents Verhaen and Lopez, and Secretary General Mr. Chochetti. Now we have invited four relevant DGs, directors, generals of four DGs, and I am going to give them the floor for six minutes, starting with Mr. Cletti, DG Fins.
Merci, Musil, président.
Speaker 10
Thank you, Jim. As you will be aware, DG Fins is responsible both for general coordination of the overall budget of the European Parliament and €470,000,000 of its own to administer. I'll give you the basic information related to those two roles. Firstly, key points regarding the global coordination of the institution's budget. First, set parameters across all the institutions communicated by the European Commission.
Inflation rates are predicted to be 2.1% for 2026 and 2.2% for 2027 for the entire EU. So, that affects all contractual elements of the budget. Then, we have adjustments to members' and statutory staff pay. That covers parliamentary assistance, too. And this is also regulated by a delegated act of the Commission: 2.2% as of 07/01/2026 and 2.3% as of 07/01/2027.
Now, let's look at the overall trends in the budget. You can see that overall, there's a €60,600,000 increase from 2026 to 2027, a 2.33% increase. As in previous years, you can break this down into the variation of statutory financial obligations, which is increasing by 33,200,000 (2.01%), and the variation of nonstatutory expenditure, 27,000,000, which is an increase of 2.89%. The next slide shows you the presentation of the hearing with all the DGs. This is preparatory work, which is carried out by the administration, and it has allowed for a reduction of 17,000,000 from the original request by the DGs.
So, that's a screening of the budget before it goes to the bureau and the budget committee. Main costs in 2027 for the institution are fairly traditional expenditures. Staff: 1,300,000,000.0, 50% of the budget. So, that's a sizable chunk. Members: 520,000,000 (19%).
In third place, buildings: 265,000,000, 10% of the total. And then another, that covers IT, groups and parties' expenditure, communications expenditure, and other administrative expenditure. Over two-thirds of expenditure is statutory financial obligations. The statutory rules stipulate that there shall be a standard variation rate. Top of the list are salaries.
This is for staff and temporary staff. So that includes salaries for members and for parliamentary assistants. In the budget screening, I think there's a significant variation of over 2,000,000, which relates to an increase in remuneration. So, that's a statutory financial obligation. Then, there are two headings related to IT.
This shows the level of investment in increased digitalization and augmented cybersecurity. But not everything is going up. We're going down by more than 2,000,000 as follows. Parliamentary assistance vis-à-vis the historical levels for 2025. So, there's a decrease year-on-year there.
There are also various projects where it is perfectly natural that you should put project items into the budget as they arise. So, in this case, for 2027. Then, there are various non-budgeted activities. Here, we propose certain transfers to you in the budget committee. So, in the interest of transparency, here is the list.
This is where we think we will need to mobilize appropriations in 2027 to cover all of this. Now, the budget that we manage directly in DG Finns is $471,500,000, with the main costs coming from members, $3,000,000, 30.64%. Then political structures, 146 million. Getting into the detail now, looking at expenditure related to members. Parliamentary assistance: $264,000,000.
Members' salaries: 102,000,000. Travel: €91,000,000; parliamentary assistance: €45,000,000; and then others that are lower than that. To conclude, some indicators relate to the activities that underpin this. What's actually going on? What gives rise to this budget?
Now, if you look back, you can see what the case was previously. It will be pretty similar in 2027: 200,000 transactions for travel, 273 requests for reimbursements for missions, for official travel. We try to provide direct support to members in order to ensure that we can best meet their needs while using our resources efficiently. 17,000 requests came in through the members' portal, and 511 individual counseling sessions were introduced there. 368,492 payments in the year 2025.
Speaker 12
Thank you very much. So, a short presentation for DG Inlow, responsible for Parliament's buildings, works, facility management, and logistics. Just for context, 1,300,000 square meters in Brussels, Luxembourg, Strasbourg, liaison offices, and Europe, also experiences in the member states. Catering, transport services, man and equipment, also for parliament's offices and meeting rooms. This also explains the size of the budget of DG In Law.
I need to point out that regarding the increases we have for 2027, two or three of our budgets, more or less, are also tied to contractual and legal obligations. So, we have no big room for maneuver there. And this concerns rent, expenses, maintenance, cleaning, energy consumption, leasing of cars, leasing of furniture, and insurance contracts. Side by side regarding Brussels, of course, the big project that keeps us busy and will require financing is the SPOT building renovation. I just recall the estimated overall costs of $4,455,000,000, reference prices, April 2023.
Part of it: $350,000,000 for works, $105,000,000 for overhead costs, including services. We are on track. The building permit request was filed with the Brussels authorities for urban planning on 17 February 2026. And we are now working on two tenders: one for the design and renovation contract, which is going to be the execution of works, and one for securing the financing from private banks. Half of the financing that we hope to get from the European Investment Bank is expected to be decided in the coming weeks.
So for 2027, we plan an expenditure of 77,700,000. This is not in the budget. What is in the budget is the cost related to interest and capital repayment to the tune of 3,300,000. We have other projects, including fitting out and finishing the Monterra Building, work on the external warehouse, DigiSafe backup control room in the Scholl Building, and the control room in the Spinelli Building. We're also working on this, starting with Brussels, but also in a more global way. We are working on a master plan that will allow us to plan with a horizon of, I would say, 10, 15, 20 years, the renovation, works, and heavy maintenance so that we can also have a longer perspective on budgetary planning. We're also looking at contract management.
We want to review certain contracts. Cleaning contracts are one case in point. Catering is also a case in point. We're also looking at furniture management in the coming years. Regarding Luxembourg, where we have a brand new building, certified BREEAM excellence, fully occupied now.
We're still working on energy efficiency enhancement, also in cooperation with the Luxembourg authorities, investing in heat pumps and additional photovoltaic panels. This is to keep the energy expenditure under control. In Strasbourg, quite a lot of projects are going on, starting now and reaching cruising speed or maturity in 2027. The chamber renovation is ongoing. Maybe you can spot differences week after week in Strasbourg because this happens between sessions already, but some of it will happen in 2027, with technical equipment, etc.
We are also working on providing additional meeting rooms in the Flimla Building, especially for trial logs. The Churchill Entrance Hall studies on the upcoming renovations are starting now. The Salon Zina Canal zone is also being looked at. So, in general, we keep investing in energy efficiency measures. We have expenditure related to soft mobility, and we also look at optimizing water use, waste, and food waste reduction.
All these sustainability elements are also a very important component of the SPAC renovation building project. And finally, we have regular accessibility audits. As there is a requirement to keep up to date with the new requirements for physical accessibility in buildings, there is some expenditure related to the outcome of accessibility audits. We keep identifying and removing barriers to accessibility for members and citizens in European Parliament buildings. And that's it, pending your questions.
Thank you very much.
Janusz Lewandowski
Six minutes sharp. And next is Mr. Lorenzo Maeli, who is the Director General of DG ITEC. Okay.
Speaker 13
Good morning, Mister Chair, honorable members, honorable rapporteur. Let me first show a few slides that will allow you to have a global picture of the budgetary situation of DGI, I think, in 2027, putting it into a certain perspective. Total IT budget in the AP in '27 corresponds to approximately 204.4 million euros, of which 79% is managed by DGI Tech and 21% by the other DGs. The second is the following. The evolution of DGITEC's budget in the last two years shows that we have been able to stay within the linear increase requested by the budgetary authorities, but also to execute more budget for specific needs that had to be postponed at the beginning of each year.
Speaker 14
And you see clearly the increase, with mopping up and support institutions by using the appropriations to ensure full budgetary execution. The next. The share of the IT budget devoted to investments is approximately 14.7%, which corresponds to 23.6 million euros. And with this in mind, I would like, of course, to start highlighting the increasing importance of IT at the European Parliament, considering that the highest priority, the implementation of the cybersecurity action plan, adds up 5 million euros to the '27 budget. The nominal budget of DGI Tech, besides debt reinforcement, decreases between 27 and 2.4 million.
But you are aware that it is important to keep investing in both the IT infrastructure and equipment, and, obviously, also in ICT security. With the '27 budget, DGI Tech manages to ensure business continuity, continue its renewal program of obsolete infrastructures and systems, and invest in the essential priorities of the institution for next year. As a guiding principle, DG iTech is aware of the budgetary situation, which only allows for a linear annual increase of 2% for non-statutory and statutory expenditure, and we have respected that engagement. Consequently, given the context of the much higher increase in the cost of IT products and services than the linear plus 2%, DGI Tech is doing its utmost to reduce spending in several areas while trying to limit the impact on DGI Tech's clients. We are committed to maximizing the efficient use of the available resources.
This includes negotiating with suppliers to reduce costs, exploring new technologies to enhance efficiency and achieve potential savings, and closely reviewing the software license portfolio to identify items that can be discontinued. We have always witnessed a huge increase in the cost of licenses, averaging plus 7% per year. We expect an increase of 20% in 2026. And then, DGI Tech strives for sustainability and for the implementation of a reuse-before-buy-before-build policy, which has also been endorsed and integrated into the simplification plan adopted by the Secretary General. But on top of that, to find solutions within ITEC's own budget, ITEC has initiated or will initiate savings projects.
I quote some of them: removal of desktops initiative or reducing single device principle for staff, mobile IT equipment, meaning laptops for everybody, where staff will have only one device provided, with exceptions for specific job profiles that require a second one. And we are trying to implement this also with the client DGs through memorandums of understanding and also with the political groups. The removal of physical funds in DGI Tech as a pilot project, with a possible extension to the rest of the administration. Streamline video conference systems, reduce multifunctional printers, remove individual printers, prioritize reuse before buying or building in project implementation, and create a team of reusable components in this sense. The requirements to strengthen cybersecurity further complicate efforts to maintain business continuity, and there is a price to pay for security, as you know very well.
The target is to invest 10% of the global IT budget, referring to the whole budget of the institution, not only DGI techs in cybersecurity. Parliament arrived at 27 to 28.4% of this target, as already announced here last week by the Secretary General. The obligation for the Parliament to implement the cybersecurity action plan is not optional. It's not only been decided by the bureau, but this is also part of the regulatory compliance, so after the cybersecurity regulation. In conclusion, for '27, despite these efforts, reinforcement may still be needed to maintain an efficient IT environment and to cover all the needs that come from our clients.
We have established a list of priorities that we can cover within our current budget, and other negative priorities in case we fall short of budget. But it's obviously our duty to optimize as much as possible first. Future perspectives with cybersecurity, AI, and digital sovereignty are becoming new political priorities for this house. We need to be vigilant and see what the real situation will be. Thank you very much.
Speaker 15
Chair, dear members. Digicom's budget is designated to support members in reaching citizens. We have a dual function there: to provide exhaustive, objective information to the media and citizens. The key word here is trust, and we assist members in their communication efforts with all the means that we have. What are the resources for that?
You see three colors in the columns here. Light Blue is a specific effort in the pre-electoral year and the election year. Yellow is the expenditure for Europe Experiences Spaces, and dark blue is the operational budget of DGCOM. You can see that yellow and dark blue combined are rather stable. How has this evolved?
Next slide. You can see in the bottom line, dark blue, the relative increase of the budget of DGCOM: 3.4% over the last six years. However, inflation was 24.3%. This means, in real terms, there is a massive decrease in the resources for Digicom. Next slide: what has changed since last year?
Last year, at the end of the year, we had a transfer of a production unit to Digicom from the Secretary General, Central Services, which means a final budget of 490,000,000 to 129.4. We ask now for an increase of 0.99. This is based on the very small planning. We do not use the 2% inflation margin, and this means all budget items are rather stable or decreased, except for the House of Europe Industry, where we foresee 1,000,000,000 more, and for the sponsored research groups of members. On other lines, we have chosen a very conservative approach.
Some investments are not included or are for lower amounts than required. We put this into PM, hoping that we will get a transfer at the end of the year, as was the case at the end of last year. This concerns the replacement of obsolete or visual equipment, some expenditure related to the Spark Building, European experience investments depending on the advancement of works and outstanding Board decisions, and the House relative to the renewal of the permanent exhibition, where they have requested EUR 2,000,000. We have budgeted EUR 1,000,000. A very quick look at the overall spending of the administration to see how tiny our share is in this.
It doesn't come, so I say it. It's 5%. We spent 5% on communication, DG communication, and other DGs combined. Let's look at how this light yellow slide is divided into different blocks. Here, you can see 11% of our web presence and social media presence: dark blue represents the biggest block, the visitors; sponsored visitors groups of members are in yellow; Europe experience expenditure is in light blue; and the Parliamentarium and House of European History, where we have to update both permanent exhibitions.
Green media. This is a lot of different expenditure monitoring: audiovisual production, audiovisual equipment, web streaming, and seminars. Orange, these are specific institutional communication efforts and graphic design shops. This is also our effort to sustain and support the MFF process: Gender Equality Week, Disability Week, Sakharov, Lux Prize; all these kinds of efforts are there. And then dark blue youth activities, where we have Euroscholar, the European Ambassador School Network, the European Youth Event, and Service.
So, that's the budget. We want to support members specifically with this budget. So, 92% of our budget supports members directly or indirectly. We have mentioned here several of our services, trainings, ready-to-use products, all the visual facilities, press briefings, and many activities in the member states. Two or three of our budget items are based on bureau decisions, so we actually execute bureau decisions.
Next slide is the main communication channels. I will skip it because of timing reasons and move to the last slide. These are major projects for us in '26 and '27. Not all of them have big budgets. Not all of them are only or fully in '27.
I would just like to mention them here. I can explain it further. So first is the implementation of the big reform that we had last year in DGCom. At headquarters, 80% of the units were affected. We freed up 35 posts for redeployment.
We come down by €1,000,000 for the contract agents. And now we have to make the new structures and workflows operational, and also better align this reduction with reducing or stopping some activities. Then, we have the rollout of the modernization of your experience facilities. There, we have a triple challenge: fit out new spaces with a new concept, retrofit existing spaces with a concept that was decided by the bureau last year, maintenance, but also possibly new locations where we have contracts pending. Then, the renovation of the Parliamentarium.
This is pending a bureau's decision. Then renewing the permanent exhibition of the house. As I explained, this is also necessary according to the needs of the house. We have the renovation of the TV Agora studio, which is located behind the VoxBox on the 3rd floor. And this is possible because at the end of last year, we got a transfer, so we can do the work this year together with DG Inlo, with an impact for next year.
We have revamped our Europal web presence. This is a very large and complex project running since 2021, ending in 2028, where we want to merge 130 websites into one website to enhance navigation and search. Twenty-seven will also be the preparation year for the election campaign; we will start. And then, finally, two projects focusing on simplification and efficiency. We want to achieve a massive simplification of the rules for inviting visitor groups for members.
Second, we would like to integrate artificial intelligence into the management and our communication activities. I would like to see practical results this year in our daily operations. I hope I was not too long, but detailed enough. Happy to answer your questions or comments. Thank you.
Janusz Lewandowski
Thank you for your presentations. Before giving the floor to our rapporteur, I am to be replaced by the most senior member of budgets. Normally, that should be myself, but I am jumping into the steering committee on Ukraine investment. So here is the replacement, and the floor is for five minutes for Mr. Hadi Pantela. Yes.
Michalis Hadjipantela
Dear colleagues, firstly, I would like to thank all of our four-digit attendees for being present today and for their comprehensive presentations. Cooperation and coordination are very important to ensure a sound and balanced outcome for Parliament's estimates. As we assess the 2027 preliminary draft estimates, your input is crucial in ensuring that Parliament's budget remains efficient, transparent, and aligned with its priorities. Now I will make a few comments regarding our DGs. For DGI Tech, cybersecurity has been a priority for several years.
Especially now, in the current geopolitical situation, it is very important. We understand there is an increase needed to be able to meet the target of 10%. Could you please explain in more detail what the plans for 2027 are specifically? Could you please provide further detail as to the budget line 2103.01 individual equipment? Could you let us know the European Parliament's policy for individual equipment, their life cycle, and replacement?
Could you please explain the 5.6% increase? Are there any challenges with IT equipment in the offices, including laptops and software functionality, that need to be addressed? Finally, are there areas within the DGI tech budget where additional savings could be made without compromising security and performance for DG In Law? For budget line 2024, energy consumption, we received some further information regarding the calculations for the budget 2027. However, we noted that this budget line has been a high feeder line in seed transfers for 2025, of around 3,300,000.0.
Therefore, if we understand correctly, this suggests that the initial appropriations may have exceeded the actual needs. Could you, therefore, please clarify the assumption used for the 2027 estimation and whether any adjustments have been made to reflect the experience from recent years? For budget line 2,007.02, on constructions of buildings and fitting out of premises in Strasbourg, specifically the chamber. We will ask for clarification on the planned works in the visitor's gallery. What does this include?
For Digicom, could you please outline any concrete measures that you took to ensure efficiency and that every euro spent delivers measurable results? Additionally, there is a decrease of €1,500,000 in information campaigns. Which activities are affected by the cut? Finally, for Digicom, could you please provide more details about the planned openings of the Europa Experience Centers? Finally, for DigiFins, we have seen that in previous years, there have been variations in expenditure execution, sometimes leading to last-minute allocations of funds.
Could you provide an assessment of how realistic the current estimates are and whether mechanisms are in place to improve budgetary predictability? We understand you are gradually overhauling your application architecture based on the SAP platform, a European solution widely used by public administrations and many European companies. Can you provide us with a state of play for this procedure? And finally, we were provided with an explanation of the general expenditure allowance budget line. Can you provide us with more details about the indexation procedure?
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Younous Omarjee
You, mister. I'll hand over to shadow reporters, starting with Sandra Gomez Lopez.
Sandra Gómez López
Thank you. Well,
First of all, I'd like to thank the four DGs for coming here and talking us through their budget proposals in some detail. But we still have some questions. For DG Fins, first of all, we still have some concerns about the budget for staff, particularly the assistance for APAS members. For the first time, we're not covering all the expenses that we would normally be entitled to for our teams. And there's a significant reduction of €15 million.
So we've always done it a certain way, and there are certain expectations. What would actually happen if we were to stick with that system and continue allocating this expenditure? What would the overall consequences be? What deficit would there be? Looking at the inflation rate and the predictions for the future, there is an increase in allowances for general expenditure.
And for 2027, we have certain concerns about those allowances. Last year, there was a proposal to maintain the financing level for groups, parties, and political foundations. There's a 0% rate that we've had for several years now, but with inflation and the real costs, we're talking about a reduction in real terms. So now we're seeing interference in democracy, which makes it even more important to provide support for the worker foundations because we need to uphold our democratic values. So, we need an increase.
Every year, there's a provision for APAs to be able to go on missions in certain circumstances. The rules of procedure provide for parliamentary assistance in certain circumstances. So we'd like that to continue being covered. DGI Tech, this is a priority for our group. We see cybersecurity as absolutely vital.
That is a historic priority for the European Parliament. Nonetheless, we could perhaps rethink, be more ambitious, and raise investment levels. Since we have DGs here, I just wanted to briefly mention improving the management of emails. There is a lot of spam, and email isn't very manageable. We keep getting bombarded with messages.
So, I think in terms of our day-to-day work, that could be made more efficient in operational terms. One very specific point to round off. Could you give us a figure for Parliament's presence on X? Because of all these bots and infringements of EU rules by X, given the hostility of that platform and its owner towards the EU, shouldn't we be reassessing the cost-benefit analysis of the European Parliament being on X? Shouldn't we get off at X?
Thanks.
Julien Sanchez
Thank you, Julienne Sanchez. Thank you, President. Thank you to each speaker for your very clear explanations. Here, it is not a process of intention. I think we'll have time to speak about this in all these files in the coming weeks and months.
I would like to draw your attention to certain points. Of course, the administration is not responsible. These are elected officials who vote. It's a commission that decides. I would like to raise one concern about Parliament's budget, which is the waste of public money due to the works at SPAC.
I'd like to draw your attention to this. I know it has been discussed by those in the previous mandates, but we're talking about over $44,500 million. It's a lot for this budget. And I think that there are other solutions; we could have rationalized the different sites. We've got sites in Strasbourg, Brussels, and Luxembourg.
And I think bringing everything together in Strasbourg could have avoided these very costly works, and they are not something that we can defend to the taxpayers. The same applies to the Europa experience centers, which are useless in the digital era we're in. Having these centers where we talk about parliament's activity to just a small number of people living in cities makes visiting these centers completely pointless, and it's a waste of spending in terms of personnel, security, and buildings. Well, just one criticism on UNIPORTEL: recently, we haven't been able to attach documents. It has not been accessible.
This has not been corrected. And finally, a personal opinion on the general costs. I think we could all improve by having things a little bit stricter and having clearer ideas of permitted and forbidden spending. Are there any rules on this? This is a personal opinion.
I know that the administration shares this. Thank you.
Thank you.
Younous Omarjee
You. Is there anybody else who would like to take the floor? I don't see anyone. And so, I'll give the floor back to the director. I could have answered as a member of the bureau, but I will not take on this responsibility.
Michalis Hadjipantela
Now, we don't have emails. Since we have the DGI tech here, it's good to let us know why we haven't received any emails this morning while we are here. Thank you.
Speaker 10
Thank you, Chair. I'll go through the different questions in the order they were asked. First, the questions from the rapporteur on budget predictability from DG Fins. Of course, for some of the lines, such as this one, the MEPF salaries are still very high. There may be others who leave during the mandate, so there is some uncertainty because the incomings and outgoings will not be clear yet.
However, for lines such as travel costs, we do have to pay for all permitted travels during the mandate. And so, there are certain programs for delegations. But when I look at the statistics individually, some are greater travelers than others. We can't force an MEP to return to a specific point because they may have to return to their member state during other journeys, and they may make other journeys within this state. So our predictions are often based on the smoothing of historical data.
They may relate to a specific legislator or a point in it. At the beginning of the legislature, it's a little bit more difficult. And then, in the middle of this period, it becomes more intense, and there are also different electoral years that play a role. And so, we try our best there. Since 2020, we've implemented this European solution. The coming projects include finalizing spending management for members, where it's around two-thirds of integration in SAP.
And we convene as the working group, dealing with IT and offices, to be able to start the migration work of SAP towards these SAP cloud solutions on European rights, and this will be one of the few doing this. As for general costs, currently, the budget contains an annexation of 2.5%. As you know, the bureau hasn't yet made a decision for this 2.5% one in 2026, but there is a working group currently working on the automation of this indexation. This could be a biennial. And in 2027, we may see a catching up of '26, with '26 being frozen but levels brought back up in '27.
And so, we will need to know whether we need to anticipate this for '27. Well, we need to wait until September, when we have the draft budget. And by then, the working group will have come up with a new form of annexation for Miss Gomez Lopez on the financing of Apas. We've updated the individual budget, which is over €3,033,000,000. Each member of parliament is free to use this budget in its entirety.
There are no restrictions. But as I said, for travel and other costs, obviously, some use their entire budget. Some use only three quarters or a half. And after the beginning of this legislature in 2025, I think it is quite a good representation of the permanent structures in place for the MEPs. And we've realized that the average rate was about 92%.
And so, we need to look at the actual needs, not the theoretical ones. If there are some MEPs not using the maximum, we'll have this reserve of 6,000,000; correction, for those who go beyond it, we'll have this reserve of 6,000,000. Then, we can make adjustments. So we may have to make some adjustments of 2 or 3 million. That won't pose any great problems.
As for the annexation of general costs, I've replied to the proposal to stabilize the funding of group policies and foundations. We distribute this budget according to the number of MEPs. This is stable at times, but there can be movements. As we said, people who have outgoings and incomings, independents, people who change from one group to another, and so we can see some changes. That's the only thing, though, that will impact it.
Same for the foundations. And one thing I did want to point out is that political groups can use up to 50% of the previous year. Most do this for a very large amount, so it's very difficult to justify this when you haven't fully executed your budget for a certain year and then carry over 50% when there are some financial commitments. And so, sometimes the expenditure isn't up to date. Of 50,000,000 in annual allocations, he can have 24 to 25,000,000.
And so there's almost a whole year of budget that is pushed forward for parties because they can carry over 100% of unused credits, and this creates this discrepancy there. For APA's missions, I think the problems we've seen in the past related to the amounts that are reimbursed have been resolved. However, there are decisions of the conference of presidents that limit these missions. And so, it's not really an issue for the administration. It's a political issue that falls within the scope of the Conference of Presidents and the Bureau.
Finally, Miss Lopez, I will look at the difficulties you mentioned for the e-portal. I'll look into that. For general costs, the previous regulation that was enforced until 2022 was a bit more precise. It had a specific list of permitted spending and spending that was not permitted, but I can reassure you that this list still applies even though it's not currently a reference document. Nothing has changed.
General costs need to be related to the exercise of the mandate. This is in the statutes. But the most recent reform of the bureau said that it was down to each MEP to be fully responsible. Thank you, Mr. Director General. I'll hand over to the Director General of DG Indo.
Speaker 12
For the questions regarding Strasbourg and the works that are planned for the gallery, they mainly concern changing the seating. So, this is not only furniture. It's also meant to improve the layout for better accessibility, the management of the flow of visitors, and to draw lessons from some past incidents. The current layout and the way the seating is arranged make any incident management quite difficult for our colleagues, mainly from the usher service. So that is what is being planned for the gallery for 2027.
Regarding energy, I can only agree that it is difficult to forecast energy prices. I think that in the current week, I don't need to elaborate. What we're trying to do is two things. First of all, reducing our exposure to fossil fuels, which are quite prone to variations. And this explains, by the way, that there was pressure.
We anticipated pressure on prices that, in the end, eased, and this also explains the budgetary fluctuations. So, we try to minimize the exposure to that. We also try to work long term where possible. I'm happy to announce that we have now secured, for instance, electricity for Strasbourg at very good prices for Parliament until 2029 included. But that was possible in France, also possibly because of the energy mix that there is and the terms that the providers can offer.
This is not always possible. In Brussels, we also try to manage that proactively, in cooperation with the other big energy client, which is the European Commission. But we have the possibilities that we have, and we try to use them proactively and efficiently. So, decarbonization, in other words, and proactive contract management where we can, in order to minimize the impact of price fluctuations on Parliament. But we cannot be sure that the prices we anticipated for '27 are going to be the prices where we have to short-term contracts.
We see quite substantial variations in the market now. We don't know the time horizons of those variations. So this is what I can say. Just.
One word for Mister Sanchez on the spec. For the team's concern, we want to keep to the budget and meet the deadline. These are decisions that have been made, and it is down to us to keep to them. Thank you. Thank you, Director General.
Younous Omarjee
That's exactly what I was going to say. The director generals implement the decisions that we have voted on. Lorenzo, Meneli, DG I Tech. Thank you, Chair.
Speaker 13
I can reply immediately to the question raised by you, Mr. A. Porter, concerning today's, let's say, small incident, which is now more or less solved. Nothing really, the issue was a synchronization problem between Outlook and email. So, it happens. We perform thousands of operations overnight to refresh and adapt. So sometimes something goes wrong, but the latest news I received is that the solution is already there.
Speaker 14
It's on its way. So, with respect to your question, the first one about cybersecurity and the investment in cybersecurity, let's say, at the basis of this increase. As you know, now in December 2025, the bureau adopted the cybersecurity action plan, which is the result of an intense two-year exercise based on a risk approach in cybersecurity. So, according to the regulation and the guidelines issued by the Interinstitutional Cybersecurity Board, what we are doing is also done by the other 90, more or less, new entities. First, we did an assessment of our level of maturity.
We assessed the risk to which the Parliament is exposed. After that, we elaborated this action plan, meaning that we have to address specific risks for the parliament, which are not exactly the same as those for other institutions. And we had to, let's say, put in place over 16 months, from '26 until summer '27, to improve a lot of elements, especially controls. What we are doing with this money and what kind of investment it is, let's say, to reach a higher level of maturity of the cybersecurity posture of the parliament on a scale, in a framework which has been accepted by all the institutions. So we want to progress to a higher level; I cannot, let's say, say exactly where we are, not so mature.
So, there is a big room for improvement, and what exactly do we do? We invest in infrastructure. We invest in much more testing. So, penetration testing or all aspects, let's say, of the landscape and IT ecosystem of the parliament. We are working to put in place the so-called SOC, a monitored center allowing us to monitor 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, what is going on and affecting our infrastructure.
And this is also always a moving target because we increase our exposure to the threat, to the external threat. The third point is the full implementation of the DevSecOps policy, meaning we develop, but we embed in this process all the cybersecurity needs and features, and then we go live into operations. And the last block I would like to mention is a huge investment in awareness campaigns and training for our staff. This is not only because it's mandatory according to the regulation, but it is also the best way to preserve and protect ourselves. It is proved that most of the incidents, including the ones we have to face in the parliament, are because of certain human beings' weaknesses.
So, there are mistakes. So that's why we all need to become more familiar with the needs to protect ourselves. We are protecting the community. We are protecting our institutions. So, these are the elements based on the specific risks of the Parliament.
And that let me also add that this is a moving target. And after the geopolitical situation, you can imagine that we can easily be a target for malicious actors for many reasons, even political, because of the political stance of this house. The second point was about the increase, more specifically, the increase of plus 5.6% in line 210301, which is the line covering the purchase and management of individual equipment, but also the life cycle and replacement of equipment. Individual ones, but only video conference systems. So, more collective pieces of equipment.
This IT equipment is generally managed based on a standard life cycle of approximately 5 years. We also see with our phones that when, at a certain moment, we cannot download any more updates, it means that it is quite at the end of its life cycle. And then we need to do this in order to have predictable depreciation and structure renewal planning. One element of complication is to avoid yearly peaks in the renewal of individual equipment. If we have to replace all the laptops at the same moment in the same year for thousands of users, that will, of course, be more complex.
So that's why we try to align this replacement over a cycle of five years, starting for members and their entourage as they are. It's logical. Their cycle is starting at the beginning of the term, just after the election. So we do this between July and the end of the year. And then we are planning the replacement for the remaining part of the staff.
I speak about thousands of users, all the staff, and also political groups. So this specific year is coinciding with the moment we are replacing a big part of the individual equipment for the staff of the European Parliament. But, of course, we also try to introduce more elements of rational management for this individual. I hope I answered your question. The third point was about savings.
I will try to cut and be very concise. I already mentioned some plans we have in order to reduce the current expenditure of DG iTech. Of course, some of them are completely out of our control. The increase of licenses with Microsoft comes because of the agreement subscribed with the framework contract subscribed on behalf of all the EU institutions by the commission. There is an increase in licenses of 20% that we cannot manage.
This is, of course, beyond. So there are longer-term ideas to get rid of this dependency. Sometimes, this situation, which is close to vendor lock-in, is not always the best one. But, of course, it will require a certain march of time. What we could do, sorry, is try to also review some of our standards in providing individual equipment.
This is a source of cost that could be managed more easily than licenses. And, of course, we just started after an intense assessment concerning security, cybersecurity, and performance to change the model of laptops and to go to laptops less expensive than the ones that are currently distributed. So we can cut quite half a percent of the cost of these laptops. And then, of course, this is also the rationalization of the video conference system. There are too many video conference systems.
Not all of them are used at the same scale, so we should have a look at that. And then, there are other elements. I cannot promise we will have immediate benefits in '26 or '27. I hope so. But just to mention to you, to be honest, there is the possibility that in a few months, the new call for tender for an interinstitutional framework contract on cloud providers can bring to us, for the first time, a real European sovereign provider or more than one.
That may not be for expenditure, but it can allow us to take strategic decisions to put more data, even confidential data, because we'll be fully compliant with the rules in the cloud, meaning we may have savings in the quantity and volume of data we are currently storing in data centers. So, this could be. And then, of course, another point which is not completely under our control but is in the hands of political decision-makers is the change to which the bureau is committed regarding the InfoSec policy, allowing us to go further with the management of confidential, not classified, data. That can be a game changer over 2,627, also to make more savings. And, of course, investment, any kind of investment where we renew material, more performing, can also bring savings.
And the last point, the question raised by Missus Gomez Lopez about the emails: we have assisted more and more recently to a real bomb mail bombing campaign addressed to members. These are equivalent, speaking in cybersecurity terms of DDoS attacks, because at the end of the story, you can no longer manage your emails. Of course, we were very worried. We try to, let's say, reinforce our filters in the servers, but it's a real matter of fair balance because, of course, we cannot act as censorship by cutting the access to the mailboxes of the members. So we understand it's very delicate.
So, we are implementing solutions to be given to members, and members will decide how strictly they will use these kinds of filters. I think this is the right balance between the right of members to receive their emails and the need to avoid spamming, and this kind of thing will come in due course. Thank you very much. Thank you.
Speaker 15
Thank you, Mr. Archibald Taylor, for your questions. The first was about measures to increase efficiency. Just a few examples. Last year, I abolished three units and also scrapped or distributed the activities of this unit.
Second, we have consolidated scattered activities across the DG, created synergies, and centers of excellence. This also involved moving 4 units between directorates. This concerns youth, disinformation, and graphic design. We also concentrate on and clean up social media presence. A good example, I would say, is promotional items.
There is now one contract, one catalog, and one service, not several. Third, workflows. To give you an example, we have created five thematic teams, including all services inside DGCom in production and distribution, to mirror the five new policy DGs. I would have liked to make more progress there with the help of AI, and I'm quite hopeful that with the help of DGI Tech, we'll get real results this year to increase our efficiency also with the help of AI. We have downsized and stopped certain activities.
Just to give you one example, in the last bureau meeting, the bureau decided to stop the citizens' price because we considered it the weakest price with the lowest return on investment. We also tried to outsource some of our activities. Discussions with DG iTech, for example, on web streaming, because it's still with DGCom. I'm about to sign a service level agreement with DG TRAT to reinforce cooperation in terms of multilingualism. We also tried to outsource financing, for example, for the House of European History because since 2017, the Commission has paid the same amount of contribution since nobody asked for it, and this was not indexed, which is not the case, for example, for the contributions of the Commission for Europe Experience Centers.
On the justification of cuts, regarding the line on info campaigns, we had to concentrate our expenditure. In this case, it's about reducing this expenditure on grants in '27. But if we could obtain EUR 1,500,000 more in the conciliation, of course, we would be very happy to spend this money in a reasonable way in this line. Then, on plans for your experiences opening, we will open in autumn 2026 in The Hague, 2027 in Sofia, and then throughout 2027 in Munich and Bratislava. Now, the question from Missus Comes Lopez on X.
It's a twofold question. First, about resources. Parliament services currently operate 76 accounts on X. 62 are managed by DG Comp. This includes all languages and all committees, so there are a lot of different accounts that we manage.
Altogether, this accounts for 2,040,000 followers. We have not run paid advertisements since 2019. We see that there is, let's say, in terms of visibility and impressions, a lower performance of the X accounts compared to the other big platforms that we have. Therefore, we consider this platform a non-priority platform. So, we do permanent portfolio management between the different platforms because there is constant development as well.
And for us, it is no longer a priority platform. In terms of resources, it is very difficult to say because a lot of content is also reused; for example, we use Blue Sky and retweets. To give you a more or less credible figure, I would say it's not even one full-time equivalent working on X specifically. Now, the second part of the question: getting off X. So far, our approach has been to be where citizens are over the last 15 years.
We know from studies that on X, 60% of the content is created by bots. Maybe then there are not so many citizens anymore in X. We also got quite some pressure from journalists since Elon Musk took over X to leave X. We have opened Blue Sky institutional accounts, president, and also the committees, but Blue Sky so far is not really an alternative for X, as we can see from the development. So, to leave IX is a major political decision.
I think this has to be taken by the governing bodies of the parliament, as it was the case for TikTok when they opened TikTok. By the way, yesterday, EBSO left IX. There's growing pressure, I would say. But if I were to guess, then all institutions would leave because there is also certain competition between institutions and bodies. So, it's a difficult decision. Thank you.
Younous Omarjee
Thank you very much, Director General, for concluding this discussion. I'll give the floor back to the reporter.
Michalis Hadjipantela
I would like to thank all the delegates for their replies and the constructive dialogue. We will be in touch with my fellow members in order to take into consideration all their points, all their questions, and all the answers we have received. We will have to decide our final proposal for the budget committee to be voted on. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Younous Omarjee
Thank you very much to the reporter. I would like to thank all of our director generals for their very pointed responses to all of the questions asked. I will not comment, as I am a member of the bureau of the European Parliament, but it is certainly interesting for me to see how the budgets committee is providing oversight and control for our decisions, and I think that's very positive for the internal democratic functioning of our institution. The Budgets Committee meeting is closed, but we will meet again here in this same room at 11:30 for a joint meeting with the Cont Committee. We will have an exchange with a quarter of auditors on the performance regulation.
Thank you very much. The chair kindly thanks the interpreters and thanks you all for your attention.
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