Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-09-25-Speech-4-019"
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"en.20030925.3.4-019"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission read the report on the activities of the Committee on Petitions during the parliamentary year 2002-2003 with great interest. Apart from examining the many petitions it received, your committee had to deal with the election of the new Community Ombudsman. It successfully performed its duties in that regard, organising hearings of the candidates with meticulous efficiency.
Furthermore, a series of own-initiative reports were produced on points of principle, such as the Perry-Kessler report on the right of petition at the dawn of the twenty-first century, Mr Gemelli’s report on strengthening the right of petition with a view to a revision of the EC Treaty, and Mr de Rossa’s report, which contained your committee’s contribution to the Convention.
Ladies and gentlemen, I want to repeat once again that the Commission is particularly aware of the importance of petitions as a yardstick for the day-to-day concerns of the citizens of Europe. From this point of view, the Committee on Petitions is irreplaceable, being the ideal forum for establishing direct relationships between citizens and Parliament.
Enlargement, moreover, will lead to the committee becoming a privileged yardstick for the progress of European integration. What I am talking about is the committee’s desire to enhance its own administrative capacity, in order to process the expected influx of a large number of new petitions from citizens of the Member States as effectively as possible. In this connection, I can only acknowledge and express my support for what Mr Gemelli has just said.
For its part, the Commission is prepared to improve its own procedures. As it has stated on various occasions, moreover, it is prepared to discuss with Parliament and the Council the possibility of reviewing the 1989 exchange of letters procedure, on processing petitions.
I would like to thank Mrs González Álvarez, who will not be taking part in today’s debate, for her work. I wish her luck and every possible success in her new duties. I want to recognise the role played by the new petitions in providing information on services linked to the implementation of Community law. Furthermore, we will do everything we can to coordinate the actions of the Commission’s services with the Committee on Petitions in an appropriate manner.
I would like to thank Mr Gemelli for his acknowledgement that the responses of the Commission as a whole, and of its staff in particular, have improved noticeably in recent years. I thank him on behalf of all the staff of the Commission, who do a wonderful job. I believe it is only right to pass Mr Gemelli’s message on to them.
I feel I should mention the web of strong working relationships we have built up between the Commission, the Ombudsman and the Committee on Petitions.
Mr President, the role played by the Committee on Petitions must become more widely known amongst the citizens. We in the Commission, therefore, will continue to support the committee’s efforts, and I hope that we will feel as happy with the progress made in future as with the progress we are making now. We are making progress, and we are moving towards the scenario Mr Gemelli described: an increasingly complex, globalised world, in which the citizen does not diminish in stature, but rather grows in self-respect, in accomplishments and as a human being."@en1
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