Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-09-26-Speech-4-025"
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"en.20020926.1.4-025"2
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"Mr President, the task of Ombudsman demands both great patience and considerable optimism in terms of getting the EU institutions to comply with basic demands concerning the Rule of Law and democratic accountability. Mr Söderman has carried out his task with infinite patience, particularly in regard to the Commission which has shown no understanding of elementary administrative culture. It is difficult to sustain optimism, however. I do not want to suggest that Mr Söderman has given up, but the fact that the EU’s competent and patient Ombudsman has chosen to retire early is a signal that the Commission’s absolute power is too overwhelming. Absolute power does not only result in passivity; it is revealed in the active opposition to the Ombudsman’s efforts to introduce the Nordic countries’ administrative culture into the institutions of the EU. A couple of examples: freedom of expression is practised as the freedom to employ several hundred million euro on spreading EU propaganda, in conjunction with the ruthless censorship of critical voices. One has only to read about the latest victim of the arrogance of power. Her name is Marta Andreasen. Data protection is used not to protect citizens’ private lives but to secure the Commission’s monopoly on knowledge.
The Ombudsman’s right to gather uncensored information is sabotaged outright by the Commission. I would take the liberty of referring to the Ombudsman’s brilliant answer to the Commission’s scandalous statement of 6 March of this year, a statement characterised by the Ombudsman in terms of the negative points of view and false assumptions it contained. There is a long way to go. With his latest report, Mr Söderman deserves a big thank-you for having tried to make the way shorter, but his departure gives new topicality to the issue of whether we shall ever reach the end of the road or only remain at the start of it. Is the EU system, characterised as it is by absolute power, simply resistant to the Rule of Law and democratic accountability? There are an appallingly large number of witnesses to the fact that the answer might be in the affirmative."@en1
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