Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-06-10-Speech-1-072"
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"en.20020610.4.1-072"2
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"Mr President, all MEPs are entitled to be treated equally, whether they are part of a large political group or are here as sole representatives of a group of electors. Our task is to ensure equality among elected representatives and a situation in which we all have the same opportunities to be active in Parliament. The political groups constitute a practical arrangement for giving MEPs the opportunity to work in conjunction with more or less like-minded people. A political group cannot have special rights to which MEPs outside the groups do not also have access. Otherwise, we should not be equal under the law.
The principle of equality applies everywhere in the EU, including in this Parliament. I am pleased that this was expressly stated by the Court of Justice in the grounds of the judgment whereby the Technical Group was disbanded because it expressly stated that it did not want to be a political group. The judgment requires Parliament to go through the various arrangements for MEPs and ensure that no discrimination takes place against those MEPs who do not form part of a group. By implying in its judgment that MEPs who are nonetheless discriminated against are welcome to initiate new legal proceedings, the Court is doubtless concerned to ensure that the principle of equality is observed to the full.
The Corbett report is not a response to the Court’s judgment. It contains a long list of proposals designed to strengthen the groups, and it will also make it more difficult to form new political groups. In future, at least 16 MEPs from a fifth of the Member States will be needed to form a group. That is the compromise forced through by the large groups. I have doubts about both the wisdom and the legality of this restriction, which might lead to the regionalists still perhaps being without their own group and to the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance perhaps having no group following the next elections. Whether one agrees or disagrees with the regionalists, they nonetheless have a common programme and are part of a common, supranational federation of parties in the form of the European Free Alliance. There are not enough of them to form their own group, but should they not be entitled to act as an independent political entity if they wish to do so? The Greens were also such an entity before there were enough of them to form a political group. Are we to lose a green group in Parliament because the Greens do not have sufficient support in an enlarged EU or because, following an election in Germany, they are perhaps back in a situation in which they have less than the minimum percentage of the votes which, undemocratically, is required of them if they are to be represented in Parliament. Alternatively, take the Italian radicals who, with their international radical party, are registered with the UN and who have a Belgian representative on their list. Can the seven Italian radicals be deprived of their equal political status with other groupings?
I think we are obliged to ensure that all those who cannot form an independent political group are able to have their proportionate rights recognised in the Rules of Procedure and by means of practical and pragmatic arrangements which guarantee genuine equal status. If a political group is entitled to have proposals placed on the agenda on every occasion, that same entitlement could be given to smaller groupings in turn. If a political group is entitled to table an endless number of proposals, MEPs outside the groups should be allowed, at least once in a while, to table a proposal and have it debated and put to the vote. If a political group is entitled to a certain budget and number of staff, MEPs outside the groups should be guaranteed their proportionate share of such a budget and number of staff.
A democracy is to be recognised by the way in which it treats its minorities. We are not fair to our minorities at present. We should give them the same rights enjoyed by those of us who have been fortunate enough to have a sufficient number of MEPs to form political groups. Why not give MEPs outside the groups the right to form a technical group so that they themselves are able to administer a mutual distribution of the rights due to a group. What we need is Corbett 2, giving individual MEPs their full rights."@en1
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