Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-03-12-Speech-1-055"
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"en.20010312.5.1-055"2
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"Thank you, Mr Schulz. I shall give clear answers to the three points that you have raised.
First of all, I would like to reiterate that, according to the Rules of Procedure, the request must indeed come from the competent authority of a Member State, and the President of the European Parliament decides whether to refer the request to the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market and announces this decision in Parliament. It is, therefore, the President of the European Parliament who takes the decision and it goes without saying that the President must be confident as to the admissibility of the request.
In this case, I had several reservations, since the President of the Spanish Supreme Court sent this request directly to me and, for several years, all requests to waive parliamentary immunity have been sent by the government of the Member State concerned, with the exception of Portugal, so we are very familiar with the process. The Portuguese Government had actually been persuaded to provide us with confirmation that the legal authority in Portugal did indeed have competence.
In Spain’s case, however, the precedents related to requests from the permanent representation of the Spanish Government and the Spanish Minister for Justice. It is, therefore, obvious that I was running the risk that the decision I might take would be appealed against, regardless of the question of the competence of the authority that sent the request. This is not, then, a legal problem on a European level; it is up to the government rather than the European Parliament, in my view, or its Legal Service, to decide if the legal authority or the government of a country has competence.
The most obvious solution, all the more so because there were serious reservations, was to contact the government of the country in question, to ask if it could confirm whether the President of the Supreme Court can send this request directly to me, even though there is a precedent where this court had used the intermediary of the government several years ago, and no amendment has been made to Spanish law in the meantime on this issue.
With regard to the second question, the Head of my Private Office wrote with this request at the end of August, and I would like to make it clear that he did so on my instructions, as I myself was on an official visit to Poland. It is not common practice to send a second request to a government of a country if there is no reply. I think, moreover, that after such a long time, there would have been a great deal to say on this issue.
In any event, it is obvious that there is a problem, since, as you are no doubt aware, I have just received a reply from the Spanish Government to let me know that the issue is very complicated, so complex that it has been referred to the Spanish Council of State to decide, once and for all, which is the competent authority to issue these requests to waive immunity. It would certainly have been unwise for me to take a decision, either on my own or with the Legal Service, as to which is the competent authority.
You are asking me if I would now refer this matter to the Legal Affairs Committee. In response, I can say very clearly to you, Mr Schulz, that no, I would not. I believe that it would be quite rude, when such a delicate question has been referred to an EU Member’s Council of State and to disregard the fact that this Council of State is looking into this and will come to a decision.
On the other hand, Mr Schulz, I can inform you that as soon as I receive the necessary clarification, as soon as the Council of State has come to a decision, which I hope will be very soon, as soon as the Spanish Government has informed me whether the President of the Supreme Court is competent in this area, and if it appears that he or she is indeed competent, I shall announce in Parliament, as soon as I can, that I am referring the request to waive the immunity of these two Members to the Legal Affairs Committee. That is all the information that I can give to you."@en1
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