Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-10-22-Speech-2-238"

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"en.20021022.8.2-238"2
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"Mr President, on very solemn occasions, those of us in Parliament and in the other institutions of the EU talk about how we should go about bringing the EU closer to the people. One of the ways of doing this would be to give people an opportunity to participate, play their parts and be partners in the whole of the decision-making process taking place in and between the institutions of the EU. The prerequisite of people’s being able to take on that role is that they be able to obtain a feeling for what goes on before the decisions are taken. That is why the principle of access to documents is so important. As my fellow MEP, Mrs Malmström, said, we are all of us aware of there being confidential documents that are difficult to make available. The European Parliament has, in my view, embarked upon a slippery slope, however. We find ourselves in a position which we should not have occupied. As the people’s guarantors, as the custodians of democracy and as the institution that should be the democratic guarantor of this project, we have now moved into an area in which we consent to people’s not being given access to documents, with only ourselves or a small group of us having such access. In this way, we are complicit in considering our own interests or, more accurately, those of a small group of MEPs at the expense of the interests of European citizens and their opportunity to be players in the democratic process. As my other fellow MEP from the Group of the Party of European Socialists put it, the whole process involving public access to, and scrutiny of, documents has taken place behind closed doors. That is in itself a problem when we specifically talk about transparency and public access to, and scrutiny of, documents. That is why I do not warm to this document."@en1

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