Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-09-20-Speech-3-072"
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"en.20000920.6.3-072"2
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all the Commission wishes to thank the Committee on Citizens’ Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, and especially Mr Pirker, for the speed with which the renewed consultation on the Eurodac project has proceeded, as well as for the quality of the proposals that have been presented.
I should like to begin by reminding honourable Members that the Tampere European Council requested that the Eurodac system be completed as quickly as possible. We can conclude from this report that the Commission and the European Parliament have played their part in this task most speedily. What is under discussion today is merely a new consultation on the specific issue of comitology. I am not going to comment again on the fundamentals of the Eurodac system, but I would like to remind you, and particularly Mrs Boumediene-Thiery, that following the debate in the European Parliament the Commission submitted an amended proposal. Although it is true that this amended proposal did not include all the amendments approved by the European Parliament, it must at least be recognised that some of the suggestions made by Parliament were incorporated.
Therefore, on the only issue which is still under discussion – comitology – the Commission wishes to remind Parliament of the position it adopted towards the Council: we disagree with the Council’s decision to reserve to itself the power to lay down most of the implementing rules here. This factor was crucial in the commitments that the Commission made to you, the European Parliament, with regard to our reasons for being prepared to participate in a Eurodac system. One of the crucial factors is that, if the system is managed and implemented by the Commission, there is a guarantee of effective control by the European Parliament. Some of the doubts as to the legitimacy of the Eurodac system could be dispelled by bringing these two elements together, with responsibility for the management and implementation of the system falling to the Commission and democratic control to the European Parliament.
Secondly, it is our view that the Council’s decision is not properly underpinned by the principles and criteria governing the actual comitology rules. We will therefore continue to state our position to the Council, which is that we would have a win-win situation if the solution adopted were the one for which the Commission has always fought.
Lastly, I should like once more to make it clear to Parliament that we have not used these doubts or this quarrel about interpretation in relation to Eurodac as an excuse for inaction: the Commission has already submitted a working paper on revising the Dublin Convention, which it has in fact sent to the European Parliament. It is our view that the shortcomings and errors in the workings of the Dublin Convention show precisely why we need a European asylum policy.
I am particularly pleased to be able to tell you that the Commission has today given substance to a key aspect of the Tampere mandate on asylum by approving a proposal for a directive on minimum rules for a common procedure for requests for asylum. This shows that we are not working on a piecemeal basis; we are putting together a jigsaw puzzle, a jigsaw that involves revising the Dublin Convention. Another piece of this jigsaw is the decision that we have adopted today, to propose a directive on minimum standards for a common asylum procedure, and another piece is the preparatory technical work on the Eurodac system, which has not stood still, but is continuing. This work can, of course, only be carried out when there is a clear and unassailable legal basis for developing the Eurodac system.
Once again, I would like to thank you – even the honourable Members who have criticised the Commission – for the support expressed by various political groups for the Commission to manage and implement the Eurodac system. We are prepared to take on this challenge, in the hope that the Council will listen to us."@en1
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