Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-10-08-Speech-3-157"
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"Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, what emerges clearly from our debate is that we must truly increase transparency and communication, because there is indeed a lack of understanding, as you have pointed out, among our citizens about how Europe works.
Better transparency and better communication go hand in hand. As I said, this is the basis on which we signed a political agreement with Mrs Wallström and Mr Vidal-Quadras to communicate better on the ground. Mr Cappato and Mrs Jääteenmäki are right that we must be more transparent and explain how we work. This is why the Council will make a special effort with new technologies.
Even after reading the arguments given to me, I agree with Mr Cappato about the fact that producing millions of documents does not mean better transparency. What matters is providing documents that people ask for, and documents that are good quality. The COREPER I documents that you mentioned, for example, are available online. These have not always been ready in time due to a lack of technological resources. Now we have this technology and we will ensure that we resolve the problem you raised.
To be honest, we must also strike the right balance with the legal basis, with genuine transparency and with the proceedings actually involved. There are a number of proceedings and diplomatic issues that are actually quite difficult and where freedom of speech, of expression, of decision-making, must be guaranteed. I may seem too conservative to you, but I think that we also need to address this balance.
The French Presidency has embarked upon a review of Regulation 1049/2001 and we need to act quickly. Mr Cashman is absolutely right in this respect. With his help and coordination we are acting swiftly, and we hope to make solid progress by the time the French Presidency comes to an end.
As I said, we need to make sure that, as Mr Cappato pointed out, we put quality before quantity, because there is such a thing as too much information. Citizens are then faced with the problem of sifting through information. This also exists at European level. We must be able to freely help citizens sift through information.
What does this mean? It means, as I said in my presentation, ensuring that citizens are fully informed about practical information, about their rights, about the outcome of decisions, about the way in which these are taken and about the legal basis. From that point of view, there is no doubt that we need to reflect on the resources available to the Council.
Within the Commission, I think you have been confronted with the same situation when, for example, you have to explain the legal basis for decisions, particularly concerning SMEs, but you only have one or two people in the Member States or institutions who can answer these questions, and those people are on holiday. The end result is that citizens and small businesses are forced to wait two or three months before they receive a response. To me this seems equally as serious as access to official documents.
Finally, we need to give our debates political meaning. At a time when we are preparing for the European elections, I know that the European Parliament is fully committed to this, and you can count on the French Presidency to ensure that this duty of transparency, this duty of explanation, this practical and concrete obligation is applied because, if we do not, and this is where I agree with Mr Cashman, it will be the extremists who win the next European elections, and this is something that we do not want."@en1
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