Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-12-13-Speech-3-495"

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"en.20061213.43.3-495"2
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"Mr President, if, like me, you learned the political ropes through many years of experience from the perspective of a minority and in opposition, you will be familiar with the arrogance and nonchalance with which those in power allow themselves to be identified with the institutions in which they have a majority. Then there are the moments of suffocation in which you feel like a fish in an aquarium. You open your mouth nice and wide, but nobody can hear you. The sun went down long ago, but this debate is taking place before the European public. Parliament, which screams for transparency and presses the Council and the Commission to take citizens and their cares seriously, is discussing its own affairs late at night, and then after long squabbles and only when forced to do so by the small parties. These are not, in fact, Parliament’s affairs but manifestations of the psychological, group-dynamic greed of the big groups in this House, nationalistic balancing acts – a vanity fair – that are all to the cost of this House. There is no rational justification for this measure. Yes, there are two new Member States. That much is true. Yet a short while ago we gained 10 new Member States and there was no expansion of the offices. There are more MEPs, but not more committees. The Quaestors do not have any extra work any more than the committees do. This motion does not serve to meet Parliament’s needs and improve the way it works, but rather to satisfy the greed of the political groups and to pacify their fights about distributing spoils, and all of this at the cost of this House’s reputation for dignity and its ability to do its work. So, as a silenced fish in an aquarium where the lights are about to be switched off, I say to you that this is a shameless, unnecessary and politically indefensible act, and we will be voting against it. It is a shame that two MEPs are defending this proposal, but the whole of this House will adopt this motion with a large majority tomorrow lunchtime. That is very sad."@en1

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