Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-12-12-Speech-3-167"
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"en.20011212.5.3-167"2
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"Mr President, we are talking today about the implementation of the regulation on public access to documents: the famous Act on the public nature of Government. We had a nice compromise, the best result we could have achieved this spring, a reasonable improvement on the Commission’s original proposals and the existing Rules of Procedure. We have essentially brought together the best practices of our Member States to form a new European standard. What we now have to do is to implement it, of course, and we must do all we can to really make it a success. As the European Parliament, we naturally want to keep a very close eye on how this will be done in practice, and my colleagues Mr Cashman and Mrs Maij-Weggen have put forward a series of in-depth questions and comments which I wholeheartedly support.
We attach a great deal of importance to the annual report which will be issued about the implementation of the public access regulation and it is very significant for us that we have heard the Council’s and the Commission’s explanation here today. When I hear the comments about the institutional tale of the Secretaries-General, I am of the same opinion as my colleagues; namely that it sounds as if we are putting it on an official institutional level instead of on a political one. If you say general and policy criteria, then I would rather speak on a political level. The 3 December deadline came around very quickly, of course, and we ourselves were only ready in November.
We now have to put our money where our mouth is. But then I look at the Council and I notice that the documents relating to the Justice and Home Affairs Council have not yet been released, or that not all documents have been included in the register. Then things start getting tricky again, because then I think: let’s make giving access to our citizens our number one priority, otherwise it sounds as if we are being contemptuous.
I have two specific questions for the Commission and the Council in addition to my colleagues’ questions. How many sensitive documents have been included in the register so far? How are the Commission and the Council informing citizens about the possibilities offered by the Act on the public nature of Government, apart from the guide which Commissioner Barnier announced?
The Act on the public nature of Government is to be evaluated in 2004. If it then turns out that the regulation does not guarantee sufficient public access, it will be our duty as Parliament to make sure that it does, because we must never lose sight of the fact that the picture that our citizens have of us sitting working in little closed rooms must never be accurate.
This regulation is a fantastic way of doing this differently, but we will have to ensure that it is not just a series of fine words and that it can actually be implemented in practice. I am greatly looking forward to hearing the answers, particularly to my colleagues’ critical questions."@en1
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