mr president at the beginning of this week's part-session you answered a question from my austrian colleague jörg leichtfried on the new members joining this parliament as a result of the lisbon treaty and when that could take place
you answered that this is now up to the council
i agree as regards them joining this parliament as full members but i am not sure that this is the case when it comes to their status as observers as an introduction to actually becoming full members
i interpret the decision we took recently on david martin's report on our own internal rules so that we are actually free to let them start working as observers as soon as they are elected and their election confirmed by their member state and that we as a parliament can decide ourselves on the conditions for their position as observers
mr president could you please discuss this with the rapporteur mr martin in order to come to a solution as soon as possible
it would be unreasonable if new members who are already elected and whose election has been confirmed by the national authorities have to wait for months and months before they can actually start working
many of them are prepared to start immediately
