PARLIAMENTARY ASSISTANTS VOICE COMPLAINTS.

Holding its general assembly on January 18, the Association of Assistants of Members of the European Parliament (AEPA) criticised the "inertia" of the European Parliament's Legal Affairs Committee and its Rapporteur Klaus-Heiner Lehne (EPP, Germany), accused of smothering debate within the Committee on the report on the European Commission's proposal for a framework regulation on the statute of MEPs' assistants (see European Report No 2357 for further details). The new draft report would have needed to satisfy two of the principal concerns expressed by assistants at the Legal Affairs Committee's meeting on November 25, 1998, namely the maintenance of the legal basis proposed by the Commission and the separation of questions linked to the status of assistants and the reform of MEPs' staff regulations.

Assistants are anxious that the framework regulation should be adopted by the Council before the European elections in June. The debate, initially scheduled for last week has now been postponed until the Parliamentary Committee's...