Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-05-02-Speech-3-104"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20010502.7.3-104"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:translated text |
"Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, many of us have recently had difficult personal experiences of how hard it is to obtain certain documents. That needs to be stressed here today. However, I shall be pleased if this regulation means we can ensure that not just Members of the European Parliament, but all citizens of the European Union are given real access to all documents. I hope at least that we as Members will derive some benefit from this. If the transparency called for in this regulation actually becomes a principle of the institutions of the European Union, then we will have taken a great step forward.
If there are now to be some exceptions to this, then I regard that as positive. It is positive that there are only a few exceptions, but it is also positive that these few exceptions exist. I say that because the few exceptions exist for reasons of security and in order to protect the right to privacy. That is important in this context, because it means we have achieved something – we have managed to strike a balance between total openness and transparency on the one hand and the security interests of the Union and its citizens and protection of the right to privacy on the other.
Anyone who is against secrecy being observed in these few exceptional cases has to be against the security interests of the European Union and also against protection of the right to privacy. So we should maintain this balance here and certainly not abandon it.
As I see it, what has not yet been decided is how the register will subsequently be designed and how the actual process of access will be arranged. One wise fellow Member mentioned in today's debate that there are two ways of treating people as stupid – one is to withhold information from them, which, thank goodness, has now been overcome, and the other is to flood them with unstructured information. Both of these are bad and we do not want either. That is why we are calling for the setting up of a structured register which is easy to understand and which also takes into account the need for genuine transparency.
In conclusion, I hope that this regulation will actually lead to a new approach in the institutions of the European Union, so that it is not just a question of committing words to paper without overcoming the existing difficulties that we are all aware of. There must be a genuine guarantee that there will be a review after a relatively short time. We need a review in 2004 to highlight any shortcomings in what appears to be a very positive system, and, should it be necessary, to take further steps to ensure that the principle to which we are pledging ourselves – the transparency of the institutions of the European Union – really is thoroughly implemented.
I would like to congratulate everyone who has worked on this report and been involved in this outcome."@en1
|
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples