Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-12-04-Speech-3-073"
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"en.20021204.4.3-073"2
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"Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, since I am relatively new to this House, though not new to politics, I would like to begin by saying something about myself. I once presented a youth petition for a referendum for service and justice and against privilege. I have helped to get rules on incompatibility tightened up, worked on new rules for the separation of politics and business, on measures and decrees for greater objectivity in the filling of public sector posts and the setting up of a group of experts for the shaping of a salary structure covering all public functions in my homeland, from the Federal President to the mayors of larger towns.
The question of service and justice, mandate, profession and privilege runs through my entire political career and is always a question of the credibility of politics with the citizens. For this very reason I have argued for this question to be put to the Council, because since I have been in this House I have always had the feeling that there is no shortage of rumours, of mutual recriminations in Parliament and Council and between the groups, but no statute. The cause of our problem actually lies in the fact that, although we have all been elected to this House, we are not treated equally.
Part of our problem is that we have 15 national electoral laws and no European electoral law, that we do not have one incompatibility rule but several different ones. That is one problem. We have already discussed this topic in 1998, 1999 and in April 2001. The President has told us that we have now almost reached our destination and we therefore wanted to know from the Council what matters are still outstanding and how we will reach our destination. Today again we get no answer from the Council – because that was no answer. I therefore ask myself how close we are to the destination if we cannot clearly say what the outstanding points are.
At the same time, I witnessed a press conference this morning at which accusations were raised against everyone who mentions the Rothley report, which is a report from a committee and contains an opinion for the President. I consider such behaviour intolerable and the claims that were made to be untrue, and I ask myself: who is damaging the dignity of this House and the respect in which it is held? Is it those who make reference to a decision by a parliamentary committee or an opinion addressed to the presidency, or those who ignore that decision and want to start a parallel action?
No national mandate can be compared with the mandate in the European Parliament. The time involved is greater, the distance is greater and we have less time at home than any of our counterparts. We have a decision from the Committee for Legal Affairs and the Internal Market which forms the basis for the President’s talks. We have a group of experts that has come to a conclusion so that no one can say we are arranging things to our own liking.
We have the Rothley report and we have the legal situation where we adopt our statute and the Council approves it so it can enter into force. With this question we wanted greater transparency instead of rumours, greater clarity instead of recriminations. We wanted the Council’s answer, which sadly was no answer, to bring us a step closer to the decision we need. Nor do we want to be messed about by political opportunists or the Council’s indecision. I say to you, if we do not take ourselves seriously, no one else will. We must therefore resist opportunism and single-mindedly go the way we in this Parliament have decided on the basis of the law. We are of course always ready to split the report into a constitutional part and the remainder if they give us detailed reasons for doing so, but sadly this question went unanswered today as well."@en1
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