Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-03-11-Speech-1-116"
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"en.20020311.8.1-116"2
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". – Mr President, the aim of this draft decision is to ensure the full implementation of Article 286 of the Amsterdam Treaty and of Regulation (EC) No 45/2001 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data by the Community institutions and bodies, adopted under codecision procedure on 18 December 2000. Before going any further may I stress that the regulation we are now debating was adopted by this Parliament in codecision in a single reading, so it is a little late for some Members of this Parliament to complain about the contents of this regulation, for example where it stipulates that there should be an assistant regulator in this area. It is a little late to start complaining about that, but today we are dealing with other issues and, therefore, I should like to continue my contribution to this debate by saying that it concerns the place of data protection in relation to the right of citizens to transparent administration.
Some Members who have spoken tonight have expressed concern that this initiative might impede, or even reverse, the significant progress made towards achieving the greatest possible transparency in Community administration. I must assure these Members that the principle of transparency, and in particular the principle of public access to documents as enshrined in the Amsterdam Treaty, in Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 and in the Charter of Fundamental Rights, is applicable to the Community institutions and bodies and in particular to the European Data Protection Supervisor.
On the other hand neither of these two principles – data protection on the one hand and public access to documents on the other – has absolute force or takes precedence over the other. The Human Rights Convention as interpreted in the case law of the Strasbourg courts and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union require that a balance should be struck in specific cases in order to reconcile the various interests at issue. Any attempt to change this by putting an artificially narrow interpretation on the field of application of the fundamental rights governing data protection by denying the representatives of the new body to be set up the institutional status they need to assert their independence, would be on shaky ground. The European Court of Human Rights here in Strasbourg has built up a body of case law on the interpretation of the scope of protection of private and family life which cannot and should not be called into question by this decision.
In accordance with this case law the professional life of individuals – employees and employers alike – is not excluded from the field of application of data protection. Amendment No 1 would introduce an unacceptable ambiguity in this respect. The status of the European Data Protection Supervisor and his deputy, who together form a sort of mini-committee, must, above all, ensure their independence in the Community institutional context beyond the mere budgetary aspects. The Ombudsman is a good Community-level reference, given his role in monitoring administrative procedures. At national level – I should like to say in particular to Mr Harbour but also to others – a judge or even a chief justice is often taken as the reference. The draft decision takes account of the two references. Any reduction in the status of the deputy would mean loss of independence without any corresponding budgetary savings.
Amendments Nos 10, 11, 13 and 14 are not sufficiently precise to determine the level of remuneration of the President and his deputy. Amendments Nos 12 and 16 contain excellent ideas but the present decision's legal base of Article 43, Regulation 45/2001, is not sufficiently large to carry them.
Amendments Nos 9 and 15 refer to parts only of the evidence and need redrafting with a view to achieving more balance. Parliament and the other institutions concerned have a great responsibility towards the citizens of Europe to ensure that the data protection system, including the supervision provided for in the Treaty as long ago as 1999, is put in place as soon as possible. With that in mind the Commission intends to be very flexible with regard to the amendments accepted in the Civil Liberties Commission in the tripartite dialogue with a view to establishing a final text of the decision by agreement between the three institutions. It also hopes that the Council, which has already expressed its agreement with the Commission proposal, may be able to act likewise."@en1
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