Europe House purchase

In yesterday's report entitled Europe House Purchase To Go Ahead, Labour MEP Louis Grech was quoted as saying: "We also proposed an alternative site that can be rented for the time being, however we were told this is not European Parliament policy". What Mr Grech actually said was that an alternative proposal was made in order to rent rather than purchase for the time being. No mention of an "alternative site" was made by Mr Grech.

The error, made at editing stage, is regretted.

Mr Grech said the Labour MEPs' position was consistent throughout. "Our major misgivings and reservations," he explained, "centred mostly on the procedure governing a process which, in our opinion, was inadequate. It was Labour MEPs who suggested that there should be a public call of interest after the authorities limited themselves solely to a site search through estate agents. We also put forward our own alternative solution that is renting a front office in the Valletta centre and getting a back office elsewhere."

He said that, "understandably and with justification", the bureau, represented by MEP G. Onesta (Green) and MEP J. Mulder (Liberals), said that Parliament's policy on property and building was to purchase and not to rent.

The Labour MEPs also felt there was a lack of real effective consultation with the Maltese MEPs.

"In view of the above we felt we should not get involved with merits and demerits of any of the sites. Furthermore, we do not think that as MEPs we should get involved more then envisaged by Parliament's rules in appraising sites," Mr Grech said.

After taking the above in consideration, the Labour delegation unanimously agreed that the most reasonable position would be to abstain.

Mr Grech, the only Labour member on the Budget Committee, said he voiced the Labour MEPs' views in the committee and abstained when the matter was put to the vote.