Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-09-14-Speech-2-015"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20040914.2.2-015"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:translated text |
"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we support the open, positive approach of your speech and the long list of priorities you have outlined. There will certainly be plenty for both us and you to do over the coming years, but we believe that the most important challenge for this Parliament is to overcome Euroscepticism and, as Mr Watson said as well, to show that we are not superfluous.
I reiterate that Parliament must also act as the eyes of the international community. Mr President, we are genuinely convinced that the re-establishment of the Subcommittee on Human Rights may enable this Parliament once again to be a place where we can fight realistically and get results in the area of human and personal rights, rather than the declamatory forum for wishful thinking that it has become in recent years. We hope we can count on your support to ensure that the subcommittee can work completely independently to rebuild its vast network of contacts and collaboration with those who uphold human rights around the world, giving them a voice and legitimacy and maybe, in the long term, becoming a full committee in its own right.
If we want not 40% but 80 or 90% of our citizens to take part in the elections in 2009, there are three things that we have to do better than we have done in the past, and to do them we must go beyond our political differences and try to resist the trend that can already be seen here in Parliament today, which makes it a kind of Council appendage in which the parliamentary groups are increasingly an expression of the power relations among the various national delegations rather than independent and truly European political bodies.
Mr President, this Parliament has to produce better laws; it has to demonstrate in practice that it is possible to make democracy work at a supranational level and to let the people see that it works; and it has to act as the eyes of the international community on matters where there is no place for hypocrisy or double standards, such as the protection of human rights and decisions on peace and war.
With regard to our role as co-legislators, we must not forget that for years the European Parliament has had to fight hard to gain the Council’s and the Commission’s respect for its powers. Even now there are still at least four unresolved issues, which we call on you to place on the agenda for the trialogue with the other Institutions as soon as possible.
First, there is the ever-present temptation to somehow bend the rules to prevent Parliament from being able to fully exercise its powers. Examples of this are the PNR case – the agreement with the United States on passenger details – and the comitology procedure on GM organisms, but I could mention others. This is a real political issue that you, personally, must raise.
Secondly, there is the review of access to sensitive documents. Here, too, the Commission and the Council make our life difficult as representatives of the people. One example out of many is that of the infringement procedures. The Commission has stated quite clearly that it wants to reduce its influence on this matter and we have no access to these procedures, which very often prevents justice from being done. We think that your role as President of this Institution is absolutely crucial with regard to this matter as well.
Thirdly, we must set up an interinstitutional agreement on trade, seeking in part to bring forward the rules to be determined by the Constitutional Treaty. The other speakers have already mentioned the Members’ Statute, and therefore I do not need to expand on it too much.
We certainly have to make great improvements in-house. We are against hurried legislation pushed through at first reading and deals on legislation struck only between major groups, as often happened during the last part of the parliamentary term, while we are in favour of the more systematic, more political and more effective use of our power to initiate legislation – a power that we ourselves forget we have.
I have spoken of this Parliament as a laboratory for supranational democracy. We are convinced that we must be involved in the Constitutional Treaty ratification debate, but we must, however, avoid making the mistake of campaigning too one-sidedly and shutting the door on those who do not think that this Treaty is the best solution for tomorrow’s Europe. I believe we have to win them over as well, by trying to convince them."@en1
|
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples