Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-10-10-Speech-3-109"
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"en.20071010.17.3-109"2
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"Mr President, it is never more difficult to understand an explanation than when the promotion of your interests depends on not understanding that explanation. I am afraid that many of our colleagues have vanished because they are not looking for an explanation: they simply wanted to make their points, and that is all.
However, I would like very briefly to make some clarifications. Firstly, if this report fails, we are not only going to go back to Nice, but worse than Nice because, according to the mandate of the IGC, the Treaty will mention the 96 seats as the maximum level for one country – so it will be Nice, and Germany will have 96. By acting against this report, Germany will not secure the 99 seats they have today; they should be aware of that.
Ms Grabowska asked, what about the Polish citizens who live partially in Poland and partially abroad? It depends on their residence: whether they are tourists abroad or abroad for a short time does not matter, but if they are resident abroad and they are just visiting their families in Poland, they will be taken into consideration where they live, but they will, of course, be able to vote in the same way as any European citizens. Ms Grabowska also asked, who is going to represent them? This is absolutely clear – the MEPs for whom they vote. All European citizens will have the right to vote, and all European citizens will be represented by those MEPs for whom they vote.
A number of colleagues said, and I am only quoting an Italian colleague: for the first time in the history of the Union, we take into consideration the residents and not the citizens. False! We have always taken into consideration the inhabitants, the population, since the Treaty of Rome. If you want to change this custom, you can certainly change it, but please do not say things here which are completely false.
I will end with this: if there is a problem, the problem lies with the lack of harmonisation of the national legislation on elections. Certainly, I would be in favour of the approximation of that legislation, but this is a different issue. This takes time and we have to address this issue separately. I wish luck to the rapporteurs who are going to deal with the approximation of the electoral legislation; I hope that they will succeed. For the time being, I only hope that tomorrow, after a night of reflection, we will have a vote that will indeed reinforce the credibility of this institution."@en1
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