Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-11-18-Speech-4-017"
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"en.20041118.4.4-017"2
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I would like to congratulate Mr De Rossa on his successful and comprehensive report. The Nice Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union has improved the definition of the content of European citizenship, which had already been introduced by the Maastricht Treaty. The protection of the fundamental rights and freedoms of European citizens has thus made progress, in an improvement of relations between the Union and its citizens.
Even though they enjoy rights and are subject to Community rules relating to their activities, citizens today have few options for defending themselves against any cases of maladministration, and there is thus an ever more urgent need to guarantee civil coexistence in the best possible way and to come up with practical responses to society’s needs.
The Ombudsman’s task is to put forward appropriate solutions and to assert the fundamental rights and safeguards of the individual. The institution of the Ombudsman is the most obvious expression of that sovereignty which is rooted in the people, and which acts in defence of individual rights against the institutions, from which citizens ask to be protected. At heart, the European Ombudsman and the whole system of European local ombudsmen offer every citizen the opportunity to refer to them and, if necessary, to make use of their services, to make the European institutions more transparent and efficient, and to contribute to the Union’s enlargement to include other applicant countries, while fostering the development of a culture of protecting citizenship rights.
The European Ombudsman is, therefore, the port of call for any citizen who feels his or her rights have been violated: he may investigate and put forward solutions in cases of maladministration by the Community institutions and, if the conciliation solutions he suggests fail, he may make recommendations or refer the issue to the European Parliament.
According to the annual report which our Ombudsman has presented to us, to date he has been busy – and in this he has also been effectively aided by the network of European national and local ombudsmen – with a huge range of issues: tax provisions, project funding, rules on competition, discrimination on the grounds of gender, race, health, income or other reasons, late payments, contractual disputes, arbitrary discrimination, lack of transparency or the refusal of various EU institutions to provide access to information.
The importance of his timely and impartial actions is therefore obvious to all. His office, introduced into the Community system by the Maastricht Treaty of 1992, now mainly operates within the area of defending citizens faced with a jungle of regulations and orders, which are already extensive within individual countries, and which will become ever more complex as a more complete supranational legal system is built.
For this reason the European Parliament, in thanking the Ombudsman, ought to undertake to highlight the importance of his office, as well as the Committee on Petitions itself, which is its operational arm for analysis, monitoring and making proposals, so as to foster the process of democratisation and social cohesion. With the work of the European Ombudsman, assisted by the Commission and its technical systems, it is now possible to better consolidate the concept of European citizenship, to publicise and promote a culture of defence of the people in Europe, moving from a model of bureaucracy which weighs upon the EU institutions to one of defence of the people, and above all of power to the people – in other words, democracy in action.
In the light of this qualitative leap, I approve in organisational terms of the report which was presented to us today. In this way we will be able to continue to reinforce the system protecting human rights and fundamental freedoms, as well as the principles of cooperation and subsidiarity, in such a way that European citizens truly become masters, and not merely an electorate that is called upon to vote."@en1
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