Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-12-12-Speech-3-170"
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"en.20011212.5.3-170"2
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".
Mr President, I would now like to respond in as much detail as possible to those who have contributed to the debate. In general, I am not surprised at the expressions of impatience and vigilance, and at the calls for further action directed at the Commission. Mrs Maij-Weggen, you reminded us, although I had already done so, that the Commission arrived at its decision after several days extra delay, which we really needed. As you can imagine, I took part in all these debates within the College to assess the implications of this new system, this new instrument for the internal organisation of the Commission. However, I have assured you, very candidly, that these extra days we required in no way prevented the system from coming into operation on 3 December. Ladies and gentlemen, there have indeed been results since 3 December, as I said to Mr Bonde, who asked me about this. Since then, we have already received quite a number of inquiries. These have been processed by the Commission’s services, according to the new procedures. Mrs Maij-Weggen, the register you mentioned will come into operation in June, on 3 June next year. You also remarked that there is some uncertainty over the author of the report, as did Mr Cashman. We refer to the author of the document in Article 8 of our text. We have not gone into further details on this as, naturally, the author’s description depends on the nature of the document. Documents may be written by an institution, another public authority, a natural person, a civil servant or a private company. I would therefore like to explain that the precise description of the author depends of course on the nature of the document. However, this register will indeed come into operation on 3 June next year, we are working to meet this deadline. Mrs Maij-Weggen, I would also like to say that the Secretariat-General has a centralised management structure. As I said a few minutes ago, we have, for instance, an e-mail address, a postal address and a fax number that can be used. We can therefore reply to people if they write to any specific Directorate-General. If a problem arises, the Secretariat-General acts as arbitrator. However, we have a central main address and the Directorates-General can reply. Of course, the decision is taken in the first instance by the Directorate-General which produced the document.
I would now like to address the definition of the document, a subject you are all concerned with. Mrs Maij-Weggen, as I said when I spoke a few minutes ago, we did indeed restrict ourselves to reading the text of the regulation which gives a broad and neutral definition. This was the wish of the Community legislator and we did not want to limit the scope of our own Rules of Procedure.
As regards the security rules, which you and Mr Cashman also mentioned, I can confirm that these rules, adopted at the end of November, will be published very shortly. Publication is only being delayed by legal and language issues. I would like to ask for your understanding on this matter. However, the security rules will be published very shortly. In any case, in the light of what you both said on this matter, we will further increase the speed of work towards publication.
Mr Cashman, you also referred to the need for a publicity campaign. I promise you we will ensure that information on this new regulation, the arrangements entailed and the new provisions available to citizens is disseminated as widely as possible. Unless I am very much mistaken, the three European institutions decided not to hold a publicity campaign on this regulation at the forum of the inter-institutional technical working party. However, we will publicise the existence of this citizens’ guide thorough our website and all our documents. The citizens’ guide will be available online in the near future. We will henceforth promote this transparency and openness as endorsed or extended by this regulation.
Mrs Hautala, you mentioned the issue of the inter-institutional committee, as did Mrs Maij-Weggen and Mr Cashman, I cannot elaborate further on what I have already said, though I do appreciate Parliament’s concern over a sense of political responsibility. Mrs de Palacio’s compromise proposal endeavours to go as far as possible towards meeting Parliament’s wishes. I think you understand this. To sum up, I told Mr Bonde that we have had results. We are receiving our first inquiries and we are processing them according to the new regulation. Mr Perry and Mr van den Berg bear out this concern for vigilance. I believe that this regulation can bring about real progress. Maybe other regulations will go further. We will see the effects of change as we go along. I promise that the Commission is wholeheartedly committed to implementing this regulation.
I would now like to address the need for transparency and democracy as far as citizens are concerned. The regulation is an initial response to this. We must also respond in other ways. This is also one of the issues of institutional reform and the Laeken Declaration. It is also the subject of the open debate that will be possible within the framework of the convention and the forthcoming reform in 2004. In my opinion there is still much to be done to increase transparency and democracy and to ensure citizens are more closely involved in the decisions we take.
Then, Mr Marinos asked me a question on the ability of the Committee on Petitions to access documents. Access is of course possible, though we must respect the protection of personal data. The documents of third parties can be accessed but they remain protected by Article 4 of the regulation, which must be adhered to.
Lastly, Mr Cashman asked me a question on the significant issue of the Ombudsman. I would like to respond to this. Although I know that you are aware of this, I would like to confirm that the Treaty and the very statute of the Ombudsman means that complaints from third-country citizens living outside the Union cannot be dealt with. This is all I wanted to say to you. Thank you again for your contributions and your vigilance. Your reactions came as no surprise to me. We shall henceforth take them into account when implementing this regulation in a specific and operational manner."@en1
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