Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-11-24-Speech-2-359"
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"en.20091124.34.2-359"2
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"Mr President, Mrs Malmström, Mr Barrot, a miracle has occurred. For the first time in five years, I am witnessing the Council taking part in this debate, and I would like to offer my sincere thanks to the Swedish Presidency of the Council for this major signal.
A warm welcome to you to the plenary session, the first time the Council has been represented at the debate on its discharge.
All’s well that ends well, as we say in Germany? No, not this time. The discharge procedure with the Council has shown itself to be ineffable and in urgent need of a place on the interinstitutional agenda, which, incidentally, needs to be extended to include the President of the European Council. We have a new player on the European stage, and the existing procedure cannot, and must not, continue as it is. The way that Parliament has to beg for information and dialogue partners in order to get answers for its outstanding questions is unworthy of a parliamentary democracy. The Council styles itself as the ultimate and absolutist body and I, as a citizen of the European Union, stand before the voters of my constituency ashamed of this behaviour. The procedure that we have had so far is simply absurd and it must not be allowed to carry on in future.
I would like to thank the Swedish Presidency once again. We have made interesting beginnings. Firstly, there was this conversation, a new and unprecedented milestone, and the fact that you are present here today is a fantastic signal. The Presidency of the Council, like all the other EU institutions, must put itself forward for discharge by Parliament, and the same applies, now more than ever, of course, to the new High Representative, as head of the new External Action Service. We MEPs must now show that this issue is important to us and that we have to drive it forwards together. This issue must be on every agenda, and I would like to ask the Commission to put it on the agenda.
We do not like how the debate has been going so far. The fact that we have nothing, not one single proposal, for how things should be in the future, disturbs us. Lisbon must not become a synonym for an opaque European Union in which parliamentary supervision has been steamrollered. It is an opportunity for a new beginning with strong participation on the part of the elected representatives of the people, and the granting of discharge for the future President of the European Council is the first acid test."@en1
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