Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-06-05-Speech-4-201"
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"en.20030605.5.4-201"2
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"Mr President, I wish to begin by congratulating not only the rapporteur on the report but also the Commission on the communication. For us it represents an important step in recognition of the role and legitimate rights of citizens who file a complaint with the Commission. It is also the first time the Commission has adopted public rules on how to deal with infringements of Community law by Member States. Those public rules are often a marked improvement on the practice in a number of our Member States.
Secondly, I recall that when the previous Ombudsman, Mr Jacob Söderman, asked the Commission to adopt rules on how to treat complainants, his recommendation was to recognise that the complainant was a party to an administrative procedure. While my group considers that this should be the final objective, it also considers that the adopted code is a genuine improvement. Perhaps there will be an opportunity to advance further through the adoption of an administrative law for the Union's institutions and agencies.
Thirdly, I want to mention an area on which my colleague, Mr Wyn, and I tabled an amendment which was rejected by the committee – which is unusual because our committee normally shows very good sense. The report at the moment states that the Commission enjoys a discretionary power in relation to its consideration of complaints.
While we recognise that the Commission needs a certain discretion as to if and when it opens an infringement procedure, the discretion has to be used in compliance with the Commission's obligations to ensure that Community law is implemented and applied.
Article 211, which makes the Commission the guardian of the Treaties, and Article 226, which gives the Commission the right to open infringement procedures, constitute the essential safeguard in the Treaties for the application of the
. Therefore, we are concerned about this view of the Commission's powers of discretion being extremely wide and would prefer to have them described as providing a certain margin of appreciation.
Finally, I want to stress, as the Convention is coming to a conclusion, the importance of maintaining the Commission's role in monitoring the implementation of Community law. The number of complaints received by the Commission and the number of petitions to Parliament clearly show that citizens
that opportunity."@en1
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