Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-12-03-Speech-3-171"
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"en.20031203.13.3-171"2
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"Mr President, first of all, I would like to congratulate Mr Cashman. His report is based on a resolution that I tabled. Following on from Mr Titford's comments, today I tried to contact an undertaker friend to see if he had anything he wished to add tonight, but it seems he is on his holidays somewhere, as it so happens.
We all accept that Mr Cashman’s excellent report is still and I do not mean to denigrate it - an aspirational report. It aspires to improving a situation that is indeed common. Every year I hear of one, two or even sometimes three cases where people experience problems in relation to the repatriation of remains. If we look at the dates of the various pieces of legislation that Mr Cashman has mentioned in his report, we see that they are all at least 30 years old.
30 years ago the world was very different. As Mr Cashman said, huge numbers of people are now moving about and spending holidays in other Member States. In two of the cases I have very recently heard about, the deceased had been killed under what were considered to be suspicious circumstances. Only this morning I had a phone call from the mother of a young man. She has been waiting 17 months to have his remains repatriated, and local courts have constantly changed their minds about the prosecution of the person believed to have been involved in the death of this young man.
So, it is not just a question of the technical matters relating to repatriation. Very often, delays also occur in relation as the report mentions - to the circumstances of the death. I have just received a copy of one of the questions the Commissioner referred to. This was an answer to a question I tabled on 11 October 2000: 'the Commission, following extensive consultations with all parties concerned, concluded that detailed harmonisation of national rules in this area, over and above those that already exist, is neither desirable nor necessary and would not be justified from the point of view of subsidiarity or proportionality'. That is a depressing answer, Commissioner, so I hope very much that, in the provision of services directive you are proposing, you will recognise that this is an important issue, and above all that in these situations we are very often discussing a deeply human tragedy."@en1
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