Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-09-13-Speech-2-564-000"
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"en.20110913.42.2-564-000"2
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"Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Meyer for this very important report and the whole committee for its excellent work. In my response, I would like, if I may, to focus on three particular issues. Firstly, on collaboration with the committee; secondly, on the questions of timing which are raised in the report; and thirdly, on the profile of the petitions on which you most often need our help and assistance.
On the first point, I would like to reassure all the honourable Members of the European Parliament of our willing and continued collaboration with your work and provision of all the assistance we can offer. As Mr Meyer’s report points out, you asked us for help with over half of the admissible petitions you received in 2010. That is a pretty impressive number, and I would like to point out that it is almost exactly the same proportion as the year before. I hope that this indicates that we are getting something right and collaborating in a very good spirit.
Although our help mainly involves initially analysing what EU law, if any, might be applicable in each case, we also attend the – sometimes numerous – follow-up meetings on petitions. I would also like to commend the committee for assisting the Commission, as illustrated by the active participation of Ms Mazzoni and Ms Auken and the committee secretariat, in the recent stakeholder conference on the implementation of environment law organised by the Environment DG. Their participation emphasised to Member States the importance that the committee attaches to the good implementation of environmental law and legislation.
Secondly, there is a new – and, we believe, very important – reference in this annual report to timing. Of course, we could point to several cases where we have dealt with a petition after quite a long delay and our action has not been as relevant as it would have been if the timing had been better. But we also have more encouraging examples from recent months – for example, a petition tabled in May which fell within the context of an ongoing debate on origin labelling, with specific reference to canned fish products following the Fukushima disaster. That was well-timed. It is not just in that area that things seem to be going well. I am told that a very promising report by Mr Iturgaiz on the application of waste legislation is due before the end of this year.
I also see from Mr Meyer’s report that you are already planning ahead for the 2013 European Year of Citizenship, which is another encouraging sign. The report indicates that you also hope to be looking at some other citizens’ initiatives by then. As you know, the Citizens’ Initiative regulation will enter into force on 1 April next year.
Thirdly, and finally, may I refer to something described as a key issue in the report, in other words, the question of fundamental rights and the applicability of the Charter. The report acknowledges that it is often impossible to invoke the Charter in a petitioner’s case because of the specifics of the case, or because the case just happened to fall outside the scope of EU law. It is disappointing all round if petitioners discover that, to borrow the expression of one of your Members, they have, in effect, been ‘knocking at the wrong door’. For this reason, we very warmly welcome the efforts described in the report to ensure an even better user interface for potential petitioners turning to Parliament, in addition perhaps to some more ‘upstream’ filtering of cases.
I understand that this topic is even going to draw some amendments tomorrow, and getting it right can only help to underpin the image of the European institutions, which is in the common interest of both the Commission and Parliament. On that note, I would like to close. I am very much looking forward to the discussion."@en1
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