Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-09-24-Speech-3-295"
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"en.20030924.10.3-295"2
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"Mr President, I should like to start by congratulating Mr Cashman on his report. I would also like to pay tribute to Mr Cashman’s sustained efforts to promote transparency and access to documents. I have had the opportunity of working with him and serving as rapporteur for the group for other reports regarding access to historical archives. Throughout, Mr Cashman has always impressed me with his great commitment to these issues.
I must also join with previous speakers in congratulating Mrs Maij-Weggen and commending her on the example she has set. A few minutes ago she was taking her leave of us outside the Chamber. Nonetheless, she is working to the very end of her time as a Member of the European Parliament, and is back on the floor of the House speaking on a serious issue, namely access to historical archives. I offer her my congratulations. Further, I am grateful to her for serving as a role model for a young politician like myself.
All of us working for Community institutions are concerned about access to information. We are also concerned about the image Europe presents to its citizens.
We tend to be criticised for being distant. We also receive complaints that Community institutions are hard to understand. In my view, facilitating access to documents is the best way to bring Europe closer to its citizens and enable those citizens to understand us better.
I believe a suitable policy on public access to documents will prove a vital tool in bringing the institutions closer to all the citizens. The citizens need to be convinced of the transparency and efficiency of our institutions and even that they actually serve a purpose. As politicians, it is our duty to keep the citizens informed. Further, as European politicians, it is our duty to require the institutions to be as transparent and accessible as possible.
The rapporteur congratulated the Community institutions on their recent progress regarding access to documents, and on putting in place the technology required to facilitate access to information for the citizens. I would like to add my voice to his. It is true that much remains to be done. It is also true that our group endorses many of the complaints referred to by Mr Cashman in his report. There is certainly a good deal of work outstanding.
Nonetheless, it is important to strike a balance between efficiency in transparency and access to that information on the one hand, and the potential cost of such measures on the other. Allow me to mention an example of a measure I find too expensive. A number of colleagues on the Committee on Citizens’ Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs asked for video recordings to be made of many parliamentary sittings and committee meetings, and for the recordings to be accessible through the Internet. The cost of this cannot be justified at present, though it might be in the future. I agree with those who advocate that the measures adopted should include the simplification, codification and unification of the registers of the three institutions.
I shall now turn to what is perhaps the most controversial point mentioned by the Commissioner, Mrs Maij-Weggen and by the rapporteur himself. It relates to access to Member States’ documents when the latter are acting as individual Member States and not in their capacity as Council members. Mr Cashman’s initial proposal is indeed too ambitious. It is not possible to go that far. Nonetheless, it would be appropriate to draw up some kind of proposal requesting Member States to be just as transparent as Community institutions.
The citizens would not understand why a Community document should be easier to access than one originating from their Member State. Consequently, we shall support Mr Cashman’s amendment to his own report tomorrow. I refer to the amendment deleting a few words from section 16 of the report, in the interests of clarity. This is all thanks to Mrs Maij-Weggen’s proposal in the Committee on Constitutional Affairs."@en1
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