Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/1999-09-14-Speech-2-046"
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"en.19990914.1.2-046"2
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"It is with growing concern that I have heard the President-designate of the Commission’s, Mr Prodi’s, remarks about the role of the Commission. Mr Prodi and a number of the Commissioners-designate have put forward strongly federalist plans which the majority of people in my country are opponents of, and which, I have noted, a growing number of people in other Member States are also opposing. The aversion to a federalist Europe is, of course, due to the fact that EU countries are generally much better at solving their own problems in accordance with their people’s wishes than an overpaid officialdom out to lord it over the continent. This attitude has been reinforced by the maladministration, deceit and lack of accountability which led to the downfall of the previous Commission. We all know that it will, at best, be a very big task to bring the Commission’s ponderous and high-handed bureaucracy up to the standard we require of public administration in our home countries. It has therefore been a source of shock to see that the new Commission contains a number of members who, in one area of responsibility or another, have such a share in the mistakes of the past that they definitely ought not to be sitting on the Commission. It has been disgraceful to hear a number of Commissioners dismissing the need for quite elementary changes which in fact are a prior condition of stamping out the scandalous states of affairs which characterised the previous Commission and a number of earlier Commissions, and which have turned the EU’s administration into a caricature of an accountable democratic administration.
Mr Kinnock’s hearing showed, then, that there is no will in the Commission to use its powers to instruct, and assume full responsibility for, the directors-general and their employees. If the Commission does not take full responsibility and exercise complete authority in connection with the whole administration, then any talk about proper administration is just empty words, and I am certain that Mr Kinnock, like most of us, is used to better things at home. I must say, therefore, that I regard it as my duty to my electors and to my conscience to vote against endorsing this Commission."@en1
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