Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-11-20-Speech-2-683-000"
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"en.20121120.36.2-683-000"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, it is my pleasure to present this report to the House, giving details of the work of the Committee on Petitions in 2011.
In that year, 998 petitions were declared admissible and 416 further petitions were received but declared inadmissible. I would like to recommend to colleagues a glance at the statistical analysis in the explanatory statement because that gives some interesting information about the origin of petitions and the subjects with which they are most concerned, as well as the countries the petitioners come from.
There are three topics of most importance: fundamental rights, the internal market and the environment. Interestingly, the country from which most complaints come is Germany. The citizens of Germany raise the largest number of petitions, closely followed by Spain and Italy, whereas the countries most frequently the subject of petitions are Spain and Germany – same countries, different order. I find that particularly interesting, bearing in mind my mailbag from constituents with concerns about Europe, because my Member State, the United Kingdom, comes about sixth or seventh on the list of petitioning countries, yet, from the perception of the way people in the UK view the EU, you would expect a higher proportion. I find that interesting.
I would like to pick out some of the topics that we refer to in the report. The first is the right of European citizens and residents to their legitimately acquired property, with concerns over what can happen to that property in another country. In 2011 there were 70 petitions relating to the Spanish
[Coastal Law]. Fifty-one of those were identified as coming from Spanish citizens, so it is not a question of foreigners concerned about their holiday homes: here we have Spanish citizens concerned about their property rights. That is quite a recurring theme.
We also have to note the increasing number of petitions relating to, or raising, issues that are not within the competence of the European Union. Maybe we should take it as a compliment that people wish to raise issues and look to us for solutions and reparations.
I would like to welcome Parliament’s decision to develop a much more practical and visible petitions portal on its website, which should facilitate citizens’ access to the petitions process. I welcome – we welcome – the constructive cooperation between the Committee on Petitions and the services of the European Ombudsman, and we reaffirm our determination to support the Ombudsman in identifying maladministration, both on the part of EU institutions and affecting them.
We consider the correct implementation of the Waste Framework Directive in all Member States to be of the utmost importance, and we ask Member States to deal with waste-management trouble spots decisively and swiftly. We support wholeheartedly the underlying objective of the
namely that the environment of the Spanish coast should be protected from overdevelopment; and that issue continues to be a problem for Spanish petitioners."@en1
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