Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-04-13-Speech-4-103"
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"en.20000413.3.4-103"2
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"The Liberal Group today supported the amendment tabled by Jean Louis Bourlanges of the Group of the European People's Party, which called for the resolution to be separate from the explanatory statement. By way of explanation, consider the following quotes:
"One might conclude that the Commission had decided in some fields to draw a veil over and forget past events. The Commission has sought to distract the public attention from unresolved internal problems in the present by making glib and bombastic promises for the future."
"The Commission apparatus which wielded excessive power even under President Santer has now become even more powerful; moreover it is all too often dominated by coteries".
By any standards these comments are excessive, unfair and, in the context of the discharge procedure, wholly unsuitable.
On the final vote on the resolution we were faced with three choices today: to vote in favour, to vote against or to abstain. We chose to abstain and this requires explanation. To vote in favour of the Stauner report is to vote for postponement of granting discharge which, all things considered, we believe should be granted now. As we explained in the Budgetary Control Committee, our preference was to vote "yes" to reform but "no" to visiting on this Commission the sins of its predecessors.
In the Liberal Group we have been consistently in favour of many of the elements in the Stauner report such as access to documents – it is a duty of the current Commission to provide access to documents. But the political question remains – is this the moment and is this the issue for an apparent public stand off between Parliament and the Prodi Commission? We think not.
If we do not vote in favour of the report it is because we want to indicate a preference to do business on reform now rather than later because we believe, on the evidence to date, that this Commission is a reformist Commission.
Voting against the report would merely have the effect of sending the report back to the Budgetary Control Committee without a clear expression of what happens next and by what means. We are against such an approach.
So we have chosen to abstain. This is a motivated abstention rather than an indifferent one. Our Group preference was to have voted to grant discharge while promoting reform which we accept is also the view of the European Commission. Unfortunately, today's choice did not allow for such an option and so we have chosen to abstain."@en1
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