Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-01-18-Speech-3-442"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20060118.26.3-442"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spoken text |
".
Mr President, as I am sure you are aware, almost all parliaments have rules in order to protect themselves against disruptive behaviour that is aimed at preventing them from working. It is not that the rules ever need to be used, maybe they will never be necessary, but it is important to have them as a democratic safeguard.
What our committee is proposing today is a modest set of proposals. They would give you, Mr President, powers that are far smaller than the powers of, for instance, the Speaker of the House of Commons; they are strictly circumscribed and are combined with safeguards to reassure those colleagues who feared that we were going to clamp down on any kind of behaviour that was in any way colourful or lively. That is not the case. But we are right to bring in a coherent and proportionate set of rules to protect ourselves if necessary. After all, at the last European election, a Member was elected who seems to have disappeared now, but who, at the time of the election, said his ambition was to come here to disrupt Parliament, to prevent it from working. In the end, he did not manage to do that. But, who knows, he might, in combination with others, have made a serious effort to stop us from working. That is why it is necessary to protect the democratic process, or at least to have the instruments just in case we need them.
I notice that some members of our press are saying that these rules are aimed at silencing those who oppose the European Union, silencing a minority viewpoint. That is not true and anyone who looked at the proposals would know that viewpoint is not plausible. We have gone out of our way to say that the pluralism of Parliament – the right to express yourself, the right of freedom of expression and even, within proportion, visual expression – is safeguarded and guaranteed. So, this is not to stamp down on any minority. Those who are saying it are aiming at gullible journalists or at the Eurosceptic press, hoping to get a story making us look silly or ridiculous. Unless they think it targets them, and I can scarcely believe that, those behind this story must either be planning to disrupt our work – and I hope that is not the case – or they are paranoid. Given their general attitude to the European Union – that anything coming out of our institutions is necessarily an evil plot – I rather think it is paranoia that is governing their actions in telling the press the story about this very reasonable report.
My group will support the proposals of Mr Onesta and I hope that this gives our Parliament a proportionate set of rules that we need, just in case we need to safeguard ourselves."@en1
|
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples