Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-12-10-Speech-1-116"
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"en.20071210.18.1-116"2
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"The Commissioner has just said that this regulation is a historical event. I would like to begin by saying that yes, it is a historical event, but at the same time it happens to be one of the most scandalous in Europe. Today, could we admit to ourselves, even though it seems obvious, that up to now we have had no reliable statistics and no idea about how many people live in the European Union and in what kind of accommodation. First of all, I would like to thank my colleagues, particularly the shadow rapporteurs, representatives of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs and members of regional committees, for their close cooperation in preparing this document. Many thanks to the representatives of the Commission and the Council who took an active part in the discussions and participated in our joint efforts to achieve the compromise that only necessary information should be included in this regulation. Any unnecessary data that in some cases might be in breach of a person’s right to privacy should not be collected.
We also need the support of EU citizens. It is important that they realise the importance of the census and support it. People need to be sure that the common statistics system is reliable and essential for their wellbeing. Most importantly, the information must be stored safely and used only for the correct purpose.
The EU statistics and, accordingly, the regulation have a juridical basis, provided for in Article 285 of the EU Treaty. There is no doubt that the foundations for this document are in place. This article specifies the need to conform to very important criteria – impartiality, reliability, objectivity, scientific independence, cost-effectiveness and statistical confidentiality.
The main objective of the regulation is to provide a detailed account of population structure and characteristics with a view to analysing the data and using the results to develop a strategy in many EU policy areas.
The data from the annual population census is used, as the Commissioner said, to ascertain such important criteria as voting and establishing the majority of votes in the Council. High-quality regional data is necessary for the purpose of identifying regions that qualify for EU assistance, as well as for assessing progress in regional cohesion policy. Therefore, could any other document be of greater importance in terms of being able to compare and trust the data contained in it?
The regulation provides an opportunity to collect high-quality data on housing. This data is necessary to establish the number of consumers of water, energy and other commodities and to determine housing demand and supply and the necessary funding.
The last census, taken in 2001, was based on a gentleman’s agreement and did not achieve any positive results. I believe the data are insufficiently thorough, unreliable, difficult to compare and relate to different time periods. That is why there is some doubt regarding whether EU funds have been distributed and used gratuitously. Of course, this makes it difficult to develop plans for the future too.
The proposed regulation would guarantee reliable, transparent and comparable results. It would also require only the essential information on certain issues.
Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, I am asking you to support the amendments I have proposed, which aim to relieve the Member States of the burden of collecting and storing unnecessary information.
The vote on this regulation has been adjourned until the next plenary session. It is very important to find a compromise. We need to get this regulation up and running in order to achieve our objectives."@en1
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