Indeed, the difference between, on the one hand, the conditions to be met for Community liability to arise for the harm caused to its officials and former officials owing to a breach of the provisions of the Staff Regulations and, on the other, the conditions governing Community liability towards third parties owing to a breach of other provisions of Community law is justified, in the light of the balance of rights and obligations which the Staff Regulations have specifically created in the relationships between the institutions and their officials, in order that European citizens may be assured that the tasks of general interest entrust ...[+++]ed to the institutions are properly discharged.

1. If an SNE-FSTS takes part in missions in a place other than his place of secondment, he will be reimbursed in accordance with the rules in force for the reimbursement of missions involving officials, except where another arrangement has been agreed between the GSC and the administration which seconds an SNE-FSTS.

25. Welcomes the inaugural session of the Pan-African Parliament (PAP) held in Addis Ababa in March 2004 and proposes close working between EP and PAP Members and an exchange programme of EP officials with PAP officials to help them build up capacity in view of the first direct elections scheduled for March 2009;

It strikes me as positively perverse for this report to welcome a reduction in the number of journeys on official business that our officials take from Luxembourg to Brussels and back, and for it to be boasted that, in 2000, EUR 2.8 million was saved in this way, ignoring the fact that these figures conceal enforced transfers of lower and middle-stream officials from Luxembourg to Brussels, which their families find traumatic and socially and financially intolerable.

6. Expresses its satisfaction at the trends towards a reduction in the overall number and cost of missions of staff between the three working places of Parliament, and particularly between Luxembourg and Brussels;

The observers included in this percentage would be Members of the European Parliament (until an EP mechanism is established); Commission and other EU Institutions civil servants; European NGOs; specialised EU institutes; previous participants in EU Observation Missions; participants in EU Human Rights and Elections training programmes and EU election specialists.