Restructuring of the European Parliament secretariat

Klaus Welle, the new Secretary General of the European Parliament, has announced changes to the EP secretariat as well as a closer look to issues of information technology:

"An exchange of views took place with Mr WELLE, the new Secretary General of the EP [...] his first appearance in the BUDG Committee since his appointment, on 15 March 2009. The new Secretary General highlighted the main points of his program for reshuffling the Secretariat General of the EP. The main changes would concern the Personnel DG, which would be divided into three Directorates [until now there are two directorates; JF]. He underlined the importance of a better definition of the Staff Regulations and modernisation of the promotion, mobility and appointment procedures.

Mr WELLE stressed the increasing importance of infrastructures and concluded that a new Directorate was needed. The new Directorate would be given more tasks such as building maintenance. The collapse of the ceiling in Strasbourg revealed the need for staff specialised in maintenance, which is lacking among EP personnel.

Information Technologies was another central element of Mr WELLE's programme as Secretary General. He considered that this central issue of governance had hardly been discussed at a sufficiently high level over the last 10 years."

(Source: Report on the meeting of the European Parliament Committee on Budgets held in Brussels on 27 April 2009, made by the Council Secretariat for the member states)