Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-06-12-Speech-3-034"

Predicate	Value (sorted: default)
rdf:type	lpv_eu:Speech2
dcterms:Date	"2002-06-12"^^xsd:date2
dcterms:Is Part Of	lp_eu:Preparation of European Council (Seville, 21/22 June 2002), including situation between India and Pakistan2
dcterms:Language	"nl"^^xsd:language2
lpv:document identification number	"en.20020612.1.3-034"2
lpv:hasSubsequent	lp_eu:2002-06-12-Speech-3-0352
lpv:speaker	lp:Hanja Maij-weggen2
lpv:spokenAs	member; Members from the European Parliament to the Joint Parliamentary Assembly of the Agreement between the African, Caribbean and Pacific States and the European Union (ACP-EU) (2002-02-06--2003-09-30)3 member_of_the_bureau; EPP-ED (2002-03-08--2003-09-30)3 member; AFCO (2002-01-17--2003-09-30)3 substitute; Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy (2002-01-17--2003-09-30)3 substitute; Committee on Women's Rights and Equal Opportunities (2002-01-17--2003-09-30)3 unknown; Christen Democratisch Appèl (1999-07-20--2003-09-30)3
lpv:translated text	"Mr President, I should like to thank the Council for its statement and thank the President of the Commission for his contribution. I should like to make a few observations about the Council reforms and the problem of illegal immigrants. As far as Council reforms are concerned, three issues appear to me to be of major importance. These are the improvement and revaluation of the General Affairs Council, the improvement of the decision-making procedure and especially the public nature of Council legislation. It seems to me that the General Affairs Council should be split up as a matter of urgency, particularly because the specialist councils have pulled far too much power towards themselves, and the General Affairs Council seems to have lost its coordinating task. It might also be helpful if in all Member States, people in charge of European affairs would actually be given the title of minister so that they are put on an equal footing as most specialist ministers. This would facilitate the coordinating role of the relevant ministers both nationally and in the Council. As far as the decision-making procedure is concerned, I should like to advise the Council to study the 34 types of decision in order to find out whether improvements can be made in the Council on this score without amending the Treaty. Decision-making as it stands is totally lacking transparency and the scope of the decisions is unclear. Measures to simplify these and to promote transparency would be very desirable. As far as this transparency is concerned, I believe it could be a very important improvement, without changing the Treaty, if public access were organised in the case of decision-making on European legislation. It is one of the fundamental rules of democracy that a legislator lays down legislation in public. The Council of Ministers is one of the few bodies in the world that does not do that, and that is really no longer acceptable. A decision, therefore, to make those components of the Council public that are involved with legislation is required as a matter of urgency. I should like to finish off with a comment on illegality. I welcome the fact that border police will be introduced, but perhaps making airports into external borders again could also be considered. Since at present, security checks are being made at airports anyway, it would be easy also to show your passport. This may be a little like swearing in church, but in my view, the issue of illegal immigrants in Europe must be solved, and the stepping up of security at airports could be an attempt at a solution. In fact, I have always been opposed to the opening up of airports."@en1

Named graphs describing this resource:

The resource appears as object in 2 triples

Context graph