Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-10-13-Speech-3-105"
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"en.20041013.6.3-105"2
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"Mr President, something has gone wrong: I have forgotten my notes. I have therefore spent the last five minutes trying to put them together again. My speech will therefore be that much livelier, even if it is rather lacking in coherence.
Allow me firstly to thank Commissioner Vitorino for his valuable comments. I believe that relations between the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs and yourself have indeed been exemplary and very satisfying. You said that this was your last speech as Commissioner in this House. I would say to you that tomorrow is another day. I should also like to thank the Dutch Presidency, which ever since it came into office has demonstrated a very great capacity to listen to the European Parliament, and in particular Mr Donner who has shown himself to be very sensitive to the arguments we have put forward in favour of using Article 67(2), for the purpose of extending qualified majority voting, codecision and, I hope, the guarantees associated with the Court of Justice to the whole of Title IV of the Treaty establishing the European Community.
You said, Mr President-in-Office, that, where the Court of Justice was concerned, we should have to wait a little. I understand your reasoning and the difficulty you are in, but allow me to point out to you what a strange argument this is. Just because a hospital is overcrowded, are people told that they need only go elsewhere to die? The Court of Justice does indeed have problems. Fine, let us try to solve them but, in the meantime, this does not signify that people awaiting trial are not entitled to justice.
Let us acknowledge, ladies and gentlemen, the fact that the report I am presenting to you is evidence of the considerable unity of the committee I chair, a unity that has not always been in evidence. The central point of this report, and the one we are emphasising, is the extension of qualified majority voting and codecision to Title IV of the Treaty establishing the European Community. We think that qualified majority voting is a guarantee of efficiency, and we think that codecision is a guarantee of democracy. We would add that supervision by the Court of Justice is a guarantee of legal certainty.
Mr President, what is the Council’s position in this case? With the Treaties of Amsterdam and Nice, you have the legal option of implementing the extension. The political will would also seem to be there, since all the governments have agreed upon a draft Constitution or Constitutional Treaty that provides for this extension. If, then, both the option and the political will are available to you, allow me to say that you have a duty to implement the extension, unless – most untypically for you, Mr President-in-Office – you are to give way to heaven knows what schizophrenic tendencies that are apparently causing worry within the Council. If, at institutional level, you have a great many things to do in support of the Constitutional Treaty, you therefore have something specific to do in this particular area, in order, as you have said, for this momentous change to take place in April.
There is also the issue of transparency in the Council. There are a lot of things I could emphasise, for example the protection of fundamental rights. This Parliament sets great store not only by the protection of fundamental rights, but also by their promotion. All European legislation must be aimed specifically at extending these rights and at their not simply being perceived in the light of any distortions that they might undergo. This is a change of direction that also makes us want to see the human rights agency quickly put in place.
Regarding asylum and integration – highly sensitive subjects at the present time that, much more than other topics on the agenda, have certainly been at the root of a number of worries on the part of the members of my committee – let me state very clearly, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, that, if there are to be detention centres for asylum seekers, the central issue, on which everything depends, is that of being clear about what is the administrative and legal authority that has jurisdiction over these asylum seekers. It is inconceivable, as far as our committee is concerned, that it can be any authority other than that of a Member State or of the European Union itself. In this context, a wide variety of solutions must be considered, provided that there is no desire to impose upon people placed in these detention centres conditions of semi-imprisonment such as are seen in certain places. In any case, we are convinced, where this point is concerned, that the problem will not be resolved without increased financial solidarity. Mr Vitorino thus appealed to the ‘Justice and Home Affairs’ Council as follows: if solidarity is to be exercised, money is required.
I shall conclude with a few words on terrorism and fundamental rights. I would highlight the following paradox, which surprises me. Now, at a time when everyone would like police forces to be able to exchange information but when, however, prudence is the order of the day when it comes to the transmission of data, the following situation arises: police forces clearly have a lot of difficulties exchanging information, whereas data is spread to every corner of the world under unsatisfactory legal conditions. We are expecting the November Council to restore some logic to the matter and to ensure that people’s fundamental rights will be guaranteed where data protection is concerned."@en1
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