Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-05-03-Speech-3-117"
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"en.20000503.7.3-117"2
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"Mr President, I too would like to thank the Commissioner for his reply. It is clear from the current debate that the European Parliament has asked the Commission to rotate senior posts and has already lent its support to this idea. We have also asked to “de-flag” senior posts. We want to see people appointed on merit and quality, and we as the Group of the Party of European Socialists very much welcome the action taken by the Commission so far, in response to Parliament’s requests. We have also ascertained – and I must say that a number of the questions raised a moment ago are really starting to confuse the issue again – that the Commission is responsible for its appointments and that we as Parliament do not want to take the Commission’s place, especially not as far as appointments are concerned, because we would then be throwing everything back into disarray, and I felt that some of the questions were already heading in that direction again. I would actually like to return to the very root cause of this discussion. If it were to obtain these statistics, I believe that we already had them at our disposal. If something else were going on, then we must have heard about it through the grapevine because over the past few weeks, rumour had it that some aspects were useless, that certain appointments or certain people had not been transferred and that some of them did not come up to scratch. It has all gone quiet now. All we have now is a number of very innocent, factual issues. If this is about the internal reforms as a whole, then we could say: OK, here is a White Paper and here we have procedures we agreed on. This very exciting and very extensive change is something both the Commission and Parliament want, but the ball is now back in the Commission’s court. We have precise data. The Commission has to come up with proposals on these points. Are we not up to speed, or is there something up with the Commission? As recently as, let me think, seven months ago, we supported and appointed the Commission with an overwhelming majority, and now all of a sudden these questions are being asked. Should this be seen as an attack on the Commission? Is the Commission all of a sudden incapable or is this a sudden, inverse kind of declaration of support on the part of the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats and that is why this Group is asking the Commission these questions? Those seemed to be the undertones for a fleeting moment. Our friends from the European People’s Party have thrown us into a bit of confusion because we are fully agreed on the key points. The rotation system is clear. The statistical data we received in this respect does not lead us to believe that anything should be amiss. Neither have I heard that anything is wrong with the performance, quite the opposite, in fact. That does not, of course, detract from the fact that, if you say you want to abandon national quotas, each one of us as we are here today would like to see some geographical balance in it all. In fact, the Commission too has admitted to this, without rushing to attach national identity to the individual figures, individual posts, because we would then be back to square one, as we would be pushing aside the merits of the case and forcing the national flags back into use, which would take each one of us some time to digest. I am speaking up today as a Dutch national. Despite this, I do not think we should operate at national level but should cover a wider level. Surely this position could not be any clearer?
I would like to add one more point which has not been discussed here but which I would like to bring up. The question came up: should someone who has held a senior post be transferred to a job in the public sector elsewhere without any further ado? This is a question which was asked originally, which has now disappeared, of course, and which has meanwhile been milked in the press. What should we make of it? In our opinion, we really need new standards. This is what we asked the Commission for. The Commission was willing to produce these new standards. What you cannot do is judge the individuals who are not yet bound by these standards. If you ask me, you would be shooting the Commission in the foot and, in my opinion, you would be shooting yourself in the foot more so than the Commission and this is not helpful. In short, we are giving our wholehearted support to reform and we hope from the bottom of our hearts that the deadline is met. Since Commissioner Kinnock is present today, I would appreciate it if he could confirm whether he is on target with his staff and people. That is a mammoth task. It is our task to give each other very critical guidance, and to ensure that reform is brought about. We cannot see how these factual questions, which do not show up any defects, could contribute to this debate, unless there were ulterior motives towards the Commission from the start. As I understand it, the
of the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats could be interpreted as a declaration of support."@en1
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"salto mortale"1
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