Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-01-13-Speech-2-246"
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"en.20090113.26.2-246"2
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"Mr President, welcome Commissioner, tomorrow we will vote on the report prepared by my fellow Member, Mr Cappato, on public access to documents. Mr Cashman, a very good and normally unbelievably efficient colleague, has already pointed out that the most important thing is to give the public access to documents that are discussed and decided upon here.
One might accuse Mr Cappato, as Mr Herrero-Tejedor and Mr Cashman have done, of going beyond the remit. That is surely a matter of interpretation and in this case also not entirely justified. The discussion as to whether or not, in principle, the group meetings should be broadcast is surely something we can talk about. The question is, then, whether we would have the right, for example, to hold such a meeting in private at the request of the majority of the group members, as there are certainly sensitive issues – as we all know from our own meetings – that need to be clarified between ourselves before we can go public with them. In my opinion, it is normal to wash your dirty laundry at home and not out in the street.
I might also add that this example shows that political parties – not the party groups in this case – always have a certain interest in the general public when it suits them. Otherwise, party conferences would not be broadcast so extensively. Interestingly, no one complains that the conferences of some political parties where things can get quite lively could be broadcast in full.
I think I can say, therefore, that Mr Cappato has produced a good piece of work here, even though – as we are accustomed to – suggestions for improvement may perhaps come from other groups. In some cases they are, in fact, so good that they should be considered.
Compared to either of the other institutions, Parliament can still be considered to lead the way when it comes to transparency and so I would not make it my top priority, since with regard to both the accessibility of documents and to the transparency of its sittings and the activities of the Members of the European Parliament, we are more open than any national parliament. That does not mean that there is no need for improvement, including in other institutions, particularly the Council, which, regrettably, is not here now. Mr Cashman has just said that we need to know who has made what decision and how in order to be able to establish accountability for political actions.
It is even more important, however, to provide access to documents produced within the framework of the comitology procedure, for example. A specific example is the Regulation on liquids in hand luggage, the annex to which was not accessible to citizens, and neither was it accessible to parliamentarians. The requirement for transparency has not been introduced in most Member States of the European Union without good reason, and that is to give the people the opportunity to understand the political activities, to be able to establish accountability and then perhaps also to enable different decisions to be made in elections.
Thank you very much for the extra time, Mr President. Good luck, Marco. I will be with you in the vote tomorrow, and I believe that we will bring this to a satisfactory conclusion."@en1
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