Born 1948; graduated in law from the University of Bucharest (1971); postgraduate studies in international labour law and European social law, University of Geneva (1973-74); Doctor of Laws of the University of Bucharest (1980); trainee assistant lecturer (1971-73), assistant lecturer with tenure (1974-85) and then lecturer in labour law at the University of Bucharest (1985-90); principal researcher at the National Research Institute for Labour and Social Protection (1990-91); Deputy Director-General (1991-92), then Director (1992-96) at the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection; senior lecturer (1997), then professor at the Na ...[+++]tional School of Political Science and Public Administration, Bucharest (2000); State Secretary at the Ministry for European Integration (2001-05); Head of Department at the Legislative Council of Romania (1996-2001 and 2005-09); founding editor of the Romanian Review of European Law; President of the Romanian Society for European Law (2009-10); Agent of the Romanian Government before the Courts of the European Union (2009-10); Judge at the General Court since 26 November 2010.

26. Supports the recommendations of the conference of Presidents and the Bureau to ensure the consistent implementation of Parliament's internal rules on the reimbursement of parliamentary assistance expenses and to charge the Bureau working party on the Members' Statute, the Assistants' Statute and the Pension Fund with assessing in detail and as a matter of urgency the operation of the existing rules and, given the importance of the matter, to put forward proposals for amendments to those rules; calls on the working group set up within the Bureau to put forward, together with the competent Commission services, proposals relating to a ...[+++]statute for Members' assistants to be forwarded as a matter of urgency to the Council for adoption under the French presidency so that it can become applicable on the same day as the new Members' Statute; believes that this proposed statute would ensure equal treatment of Members' assistants that is also transparent, and help ensure that tax and social obligations, such as salaries and social security rights, are fulfilled; welcomes the decision of the Bureau of 10 March 2008 on Members' parliamentary assistance, as a first step towards complying with the request expressed in its resolution of 25 October 2007 on the draft general budget for 2008 ; calls on the Bureau and its Secretary General to report on the progress on the matter in due time before the first reading;

26. Supports the recommendations of the conference of Presidents and the Bureau to ensure the consistent implementation of Parliament's internal rules on the reimbursement of parliamentary assistance expenses and to charge the Bureau working party on the Members' Statute, the Assistants' Statute and the Pension Fund with assessing in detail and as a matter of urgency the operation of the existing rules and, given the importance of the matter, to put forward proposals for amendments to those rules; calls on the working group set up within the Bureau to put forward, together with the competent Commission services, proposals relating to a ...[+++]statute for Members' assistants to be forwarded as a matter of urgency to the Council for adoption under the French presidency so that it can become applicable on the same day as the new Members' Statute; believes that this proposed statute would ensure equal treatment of Members' assistants that is also transparent, and help ensure that tax and social obligations, such as salaries and social security rights, are fulfilled; welcomes the decision of the Bureau of 10 March 2008 on Members' parliamentary assistance, as a first step towards complying with the request expressed in its resolution of 25 October 2007 on the draft general budget for 2008 ; calls on the Bureau and its Secretary General to report on the progress on the matter in due time before the first reading;

35. Notes plenary's decision to fully support the adoption of a real and meaningful statute for Members´ assistants; calls on the Working Party on Members' Assistants to continue its work and propose solutions to the problems that assistants encounter with regard to e.g. social security and tax provisions as a result of the specificity of the job of assistant; these proposals should be an improvement compared to existing arrangements for some nationalities;

I therefore believe that the Council, Commission and Parliament must find an arrangement that gives our assistants security but which, as I said, takes account of this Parliament’s specific working conditions, which it did not set for itself, and which enables Members to make arrangements under the laws of the Member State where they were elected or to use an arrangement that does equal justice to their manner, structure and style of work and to the legitimate social interests of our assistants.

---------- (*) COM(90)563 ./. - 2 - Apart from the new opportunities for unlawful work created by this trend, the concepts of employee, employer, and working time, which seemed to have been formalized by labour law, are being watered down. New forms of distance work, training schemes, work-training contracts, wider externalization of employment, increasing flexibility of the time reference frame for part-time or full-time work, and, more generally the development of new work forms or job creation schemes (1) are all tending to make the situation of many workers confused, uncertain and unstable.