Derk Jan Eppink, vice president of the European Conservatives and Reformists group in the European Parliament, wrote on the Euobserver “In these times of austerity when the EU Council, European Commission and the European Parliament are making efforts to cut costs, there are two EU bodies operating under the radar whose budgets have been increasing in an unchallenged way: the Economic and Social Committee (EESC) and the Committee of the Regions (CoR).”
Derk Jan Eppink noted “Over the last eight years, the budgets of the EESC and CoR will have increased by some 50 percent, reaching €130 million and €86.5 million, respectively.” Moreover, he pointed out “There are around 50 officials at each committee with a minimum salary of €123.890 and six officials at each committee earning over €180,000 (…)” Then, Derk Jan Eppink concluded that “Over half of the EESC's and the CoR's annual budgets are devoted to their members' expenses, travel costs and staff salaries and pensions.”
Furthermore, the author noted that there is no information on how the COR and the EESC opinions influenced legislation and that both committees have not been successful in fulfilling their mandate to "engage participation" from citizens.
Hence, both committees are useless and a waste of money, they should therefore be abolished. In fact, according to Derk Jan Eppink the European Parliament “may finally have to demand a merger of the EESC and CoR into a more cost-effective body, or indeed, as the current Prime Minister of Denmark and rotating president of the EU Council once proposed, their complete abolition.”
The Committee of the Regions has so recently become one of the major players within the European Union.
My Goodness, even our own Government has just divided ENGLAND into EU REGIONS all ready for action. The question that should be asked, can the people afford to pay for all this Governance, or perhaps more to the point will they be able to afford this Extra layer of Governance we have never had before in the once united United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland?
I respond only to the COR. The Committee of the REGIONS will eventually begin to Govern via the EU all EU REGIONS soon.
When the Elected Mayors for the UK REGIONS have been set up fully with their Cabinets and all the entourage that goes with them, and the Localism Act REALLY comes into play, there will be no need of anyone left in either Houses of Parliament, in fact the people will not be able to afford them any more.
Every organisation that is NATIONAL ofcourse will have to go, like the NHS, our National Fire Service, Our National Police etc-no doubt you get the picture.
Scotland is already an EU Region as is Wales and London, and guess why the Localism Bill only applied to ENGLAND?