Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-09-06-Speech-4-012"
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"en.20010906.2.4-012"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, Ombudsman, recently, the Charter of Fundamental Rights acknowledged every European citizen’s right to good administration. We feel that this is a fundamental objective of European integration and, as such, an area that unites us with everyone, in the sense that we are all on the same side, civil servants and politicians, taxpayers and administrators. Since 1994, European citizens have had their own Ombudsman and know that they can rely on him and his actions, always competent and judicious, to protect their rights and to sensitively and ceaselessly endeavour to correct and improve the running of Community administration.
For this reason, the Ombudsman has always been able to count on the support of this Parliament. In the course of recent years and through the presentation of annual reports, we have been able to see the increasingly visible affirmation of this still young institution and the increasingly consistent and productive results of its worthy activity. The time has come today to present you with some amendments to its statute. We are not of course, talking about a revolution. Time has proved, and the practice employed by the Ombudsman is an example of this, that the powers and the competences granted him have always been used to fulfil the central objective of his activity, in his ceaseless quest to improve the sound administrative practices of the European Union.
What we are discussing today is simply the adaptation of the Statute’s provisions to the new legislative climate which has, fortunately, been making considerable progress towards the construction of a genuine Europe of the citizens, by improving the speed of a modern administration, which must be increasingly open and transparent. By clarifying the Ombudsman’s powers of investigation, by giving him all the resources for accessing documents and for uncovering the truth, we can be sure of improving the administration’s operating conditions and of bringing the public closer to the various European institutions.
I wish to say one last word, Mr President, simply to mention the only area which has, on occasions, divided us, on which today an amendment to my report will be tabled which I cannot support. It concerns the possibility for members of the institutions or more specifically, members of the Commission to also be heard by the Ombudsman. I am convinced that the majority of this House will understand that given the hazy border that sometimes exists between political and administrative acts, Parliament claims for itself the monopoly on political control of the members of the Commission, as the prerogative of those who have been directly elected by the citizens of Europe and that it acknowledges that this power cannot be delegated. It is in recognition of this common philosophy that this Parliament, and its rapporteur in particular, hope that the Commission, especially Commissioner Loyola de Palácio, will deliver a favourable opinion and that the Council will approve the amendments that I have tabled today."@en1
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