Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-12-13-Speech-2-207"
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"en.20051213.55.2-207"2
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Mr President, Commissioner, Mr Clarke, I am glad of your presence here, and also of that of the distinguished colleagues with whom I have had the privilege of working for over a year. You cannot, however, expect me to be jumping for joy, since the line I take differs from the one you have just put forward. For a start, I do not believe that we ever really had a decision to take on which legal basis was actually being considered, for that is obvious; there are treaties that spell it out in black and white. Moreover, the Commission also brought in a proposal, under Article 95, for a directive that would have required codecision by this House. To celebrate getting something that is rightfully ours is something I regard as derogatory to the dignity of this House, but, fair enough, I dare say that others take a different view.
In future all dossiers in this area will be treated on the basis of codecison with Parliament, including the revision of the present directive.
In the latter case, that is certainly true, but the idea that, in future, everything serving to combat terrorism will be dealt with in accordance with a codecision procedure, is something I find highly doubtful, since this is an area in which the Council’s decisions must be unanimous.
I also know that Ireland will take any decision we make here on appeal to the European Court of Justice, and will raise the question of whether this is possible in terms of competence; this is a very interesting turn of events. I would like, finally, to tell you that I am very disappointed with the way the procedure has gone and with the contributions made by the two big groups. I regard as in unbelievably bad taste the manner in which they behaved after we had spent eight weeks discussing these matters in great depth and considering our next steps, with everyone having given some ground, an enormous number of compromises having been made, and the Committee having come to a very clear and definite decision. I think it was in bad taste for a handful of members of the big groups to prejudice in this way a compromise proposal that the Council had not yet officially produced, there having been as yet no official negotiation with the Council on the grounds that the Council representative had, in principle, negated his own mandate and believed himself unable to negotiate! It is true to say that I am disappointed, but I look forward with very eager anticipation to tomorrow’s vote and, all things considered, will say that the willingness to work together in a rational manner will always be there. Not everyone has to find the results to their liking.
Speaking personally, I believe that we knew perfectly well what we were letting ourselves in for, and we know from the legal services – including the Council’s own – that the Council would not have been well advised to take a decision. We also know that there was no unanimity at Council level, and so it made perfectly good tactical sense for unanimity to be established here in this House.
I also wish to dispute much of the substance of what you said. The decisions we took in Committee were taken together, without regard to party allegiances, and sometimes unanimously, and the amendments we drafted were excellent. A final vote of 33 to 8 with 5 abstentions accurately reflects the position taken by the second-largest committee of this House, and the only one of its constituent bodies to take a decision on the matter.
I take a different view where the time limits for storage are concerned, but you know that. I have travelled a much greater distance and have gone a long way in reaching these compromises, to which we in the Committee have agreed, in order to show some sort of backbone. Now, along comes this Article X, which makes provision for the Member States to extend the time limits for storage for as long as they like, provided that they inform the Commission and give it the opportunity to spend six months assessing whether their doing so could result in barriers to trade or disruption to the internal market – interestingly enough, not whether there might be any objections of a legal nature or from the point of view of fundamental rights. One result of this is that Poland, the Federal Republic of Germany’s much-valued neighbour, has plans to retain data for 15 years. What an interesting idea!
We have not, however, managed to come to any agreement about the costs involved. The fact that the companies and the public have to foot the bill for what the states order sets a precedent. I do indeed note the inclusion of provisions on the protection of data and of the public, as well as of sanction mechanisms, but, much as I welcome these positive steps, they require the Council to do no more than snap its fingers, since they refer to national legislation – which, as you must surely be aware, is not difficult to implement.
As regards content, we also consulted with the Commission, which took a similar line to our own, and came to the conclusion that:
‘It is quite clear that the text is divergent from our original proposal in a number of important areas. While the adoption of our proposal would have resulted in almost complete harmonisation in this area, the compromise text represents only a partial harmonisation.’
As we have not resolved the issue of the retention of data once and for all, which is what the Committee and the Commission had had in mind, I do wonder to what degree we can call this an outright success. What we have done is to hand over to the Member States a measure that Directive 2002/58 did not empower them to implement. Precisely what shape it takes is now largely for them to decide, since we have provided for an enormous degree of flexibility. I do not believe that, in so doing, we can justifiably claim to have acted as European legislators.
I also believe that there are continuing misunderstandings as to this House’s competence and future powers. A press communiqué dated 8 December from the Socialist Group ends with the following sentence:"@en1
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