Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-12-15-Speech-3-098"
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"en.20101215.6.3-098"2
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".
Madam President, like all policy, European policy must not exclude the citizens, go over their heads or take place behind their backs. European policy must be made by the citizens, for the citizens and through the citizens. We want to close the divide between the citizens and policy and between the citizens and the institutions. To achieve this, we need procedures which allow citizens to become involved in decision-making and to express their opinions. We have succeeding in creating more democracy within the European Union, but we have not done enough to enable citizens to participate more effectively in decisions and in European debates. Today’s decision on the introduction of the European citizens’ initiative will bring this about. We have held tough negotiations and we have achieved many substantial improvements.
Ladies and gentlemen, if you look at the document which we are voting on today, you will see that wherever there is bold text, and Mr Lamassoure has also just referred to this, this is the text that we have proposed which replaces the results of the negotiations, the original draft from the Commission. You will notice that we have rewritten around two thirds of the text and introduced significant improvements to the document which the Commission enthusiastically submitted to us. I will only mention the most important points. We have significantly lowered the barriers. In particular, signatures will only need to be collected in at least a quarter of the Member States and not one third. Of course, we would prefer signatures to be collected all over Europe, but we are talking here about minimum levels. Most importantly, we have succeeded in almost completely removing the barrier which, right from the beginning, threatened to be extremely unsuccessful and which required an admissibility check to take place after 300 000 signatures, before the citizens could continue collecting more signatures. ‘Almost completely’ means that we have proposed the idea of involving a committee of initiators at the start which will ensure that not every mail which the Commission receives and which has the words citizens’ initiative on its subject line will undergo the full administrative procedure. The initiatives must be reasonably serious. In other words, anyone who wants to collect one million signatures must first involve at least seven countries in his proposal.
We have introduced greater transparency and mandatory hearings at the end of the process. These hearings will take place in the European Parliament in the presence of Parliament and the Commission. They will give citizens the opportunity to explain their concerns. This represents a major step forward. We have fought for this not on our own behalf, but – and we must never forget this – on behalf of the citizens of Europe, their rights and a more effective and simpler process for citizens to become involved in Europe.
There are some things which we have not achieved and many of these are now in the amendments tabled by those on the left. In any case, the negotiations have now been completed. We have reached an agreement with the Council and the Commission. We have had to give in on some points, but the other side has also made huge concessions and we know that the amendments are more about appearance and less about substance. This means that there will be no opportunity to change the results. However, we will be able to do this during the review in three years’ time.
I would like to thank everyone involved, including the employees, the secretariats, the co-rapporteurs, the Commission and the Council, for working together so effectively. I believe that this type of cooperation across committee and group boundaries could be a model for the future. Overall I would like to see a Europe for citizens in which citizens regard themselves as part of Europe and become more actively involved than they have in the past."@en1
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