This afternoon I accompanied the EESC’s Vice President with responsibility for budgetary affairs, Jacek Krawczyk (Employers’ Group, Poland) on a visit to the Berlaymont to see the European Commissioner with responsibility for budgetary affairs, Janusz Lewandowski (picture), to present the Committee’s draft 2014 budget. Jacek Krawczyk pointed out that, whilst the Committee has continued to honour its legal obligations (particularly salaries and rent payments) and continued to respect its treaty-based obligations in terms of advisory work, its budget has decreased in real terms for a third year and is now well under its 2009 level. This has not been easy but it has been done, in good faith, because the EESC’s members have collectively decided that the Committee must set a good example in a period of sustained austerity. That the Committee has been able to do such things is a tribute to its political and administrative maturity.
I hope you speak Polish.