Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-03-10-Speech-2-079"

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"Mr President, transparency and public access in respect of everything to do with legislation and political decisions is one of the most important factors behind being a democratic society. Transparency and public access create a sense of participation and confidence in the political system. The opposite – secrecy and the withholding of documents – creates mistrust and a sense of not being involved, and can sometimes aid in the development of corruption and the abuse of power. An increasing amount of national legislation, with the principle of public access we have in Sweden, for example, is now being made at EU level. The decisions have been transferred to EU level, but transparency and public access have not followed. Our citizens see this, of course, and that is one reason why we have a low turnout for elections to the European Parliament. Citizens find it difficult to penetrate and understand the decision-making process within the EU system and feel, quite rightly, that decisions are taken and legislation is created at EU level without them having any real opportunity to study all of the documents. They therefore have no opportunity to discuss, debate or influence the decision makers. We all want to increase the turn-out for the Parliamentary elections, but, if we are to succeed in this, campaigns and exhortations to go and vote are simply not enough. In order for this to be meaningful, we need to do everything we can to provide citizens with information and awareness. We must establish a dialogue with the citizens instead of the one-sided provision of information from above. Public access must be the main principle, secrecy must be an exception. There must be a specific method for permitting secrecy in specific cases and there must be strong grounds for doing so where that is the case. The Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left and I have submitted amendments to, among other things, broaden the definition of documents, make more documents accessible to the public and prevent any individual Member State from being able to submit a veto. Commissioner Wallström said that a good tool can always be improved. Unfortunately, this report will not bring improvements, but will, in fact, make things worse. However, it can be improved by supporting the amendments tabled by myself and the GUE/NGL Group. Therefore, for the sake of democracy, vote in favour of the GUE/NGL amendments and increase the citizens’ ability to get involved."@en1
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