Parliament ‘should have known’ about rent deal

By Simon Taylor

Date: 18/05/06

MEPS investigating long-hidden rental payments to the city of Strasbourg have admitted that the Parliament should have been aware of a deal that, since 1979, has earned the city some EUR 80 million from two buildings rented by the assembly.

On Monday (15 May) Strasbourg mayor Fabienne Keller told MEPs on the budgetary control committee that the city was entitled to the payments under a leasing deal between Strasbourg and the Dutch property fund SCI Erasme, which built the two offices for the assembly.

In addition, the city had spent nearly EUR 40 million on additional building work, EUR 22m insuring against the risk that the Parliament might quit Strasbourg and EUR 11m in interest on loans for the work.

She also said that details of an agreement between the city and the property company, which gave the city 6.5% of the annual rent being paid by the Parliament, were made public in 1978. Keller told MEPs: "The European Parliament has been kept perfectly informed."

German centre-right Markus Ferber told European Voice after the two-hour hearing that MEPs now wanted to "ask our auditors" to find out why they had not asked questions about the deal before last month when the affairs came to light. "We should have asked questions in 1999 at least. It would have saved taxpayers EUR 21 million," he said, referring to a treaty article confirming Strasbourg as the seat of the Parliament, thereby eliminating any risk that the city might have to make up lost rental income.

French Green MEP Gérard Onesta, who is in charge of the Parliament's buildings policy, said: "Our first colleagues on the budgetary control committee must have had this information but it's been lost in the Parliament's memory."

Keller was asked on several occasions whether Strasbourg had informed the Parliament about aspects of the deal but she replied: "The Parliament didn't ask for any information."

Finnish centre-right MEP Alexander Stubb, a member of the committee's working group looking into the affair, said: "There has to be two sets of finger-pointing on this: one at the European Parliament and one at Strasbourg."

In a packed meeting of the budgetary control committee with members of the budget committee, Keller presented MEPs with a 72-page dossier explaining the history of the city's contracts with SCI Erasme and the Parliament on the two buildings. "This is a question of real estate law and contractual relations between Strasbourg and the European Parliament" and not a "subject of political polemics", she said.

Leaders of the European Parliament's political groups have agreed that Parliament President Josep Borrell should ask EU leaders at their June summit meeting to clarify the status of Strasbourg as the Parliament's seat.

Members of the European Parliament investigating long-hidden rental payments to the city of Strasbourg admitted that the Parliament should have been aware of a deal that, since 1979, has earned the city some €80 million from two buildings rented by the assembly. On 15 May 2006 Strasbourg mayor Fabienne Keller told MEPs on the Budgetary Control Committee (CONT) that the city was entitled to the payments under a leasing deal between Strasbourg and the Dutch property fund SCI Erasme, which had built the two offices for the assembly.

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