Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-11-18-Speech-2-040"
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"en.20031118.2.2-040"2
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"Mr President, Italy currently holds the Presidency of the Council, and a distinguished Italian, Mr Prodi, is President of the Commission. Consequently my first words must surely be words of condolence to the Italian people following the tragic events of recent days.
I should like to turn now to a subject Mr Prodi dwelt on at length, namely the issue of controls. In modern organisations it falls to the administration of political power or of legislative power to exercise control. Mr Baron, leader of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, referred earlier to the Casaca report on the importance of Parliament as a source of political power. There are also the legislative controls.
As Mr Baron said previously, duplication of administrative controls must be prevented. Administrative controls have their place within administration. I do not believe, however, that the outstanding issues before us today can ever be adequately dealt with without an ordered system of political and legislative control.
Secondly, the Commission’s legislative programme focuses on enlargement. In this connection I am bound to reflect the very grave concerns felt by this House following the Commission’s latest monitoring report presented by Mr Verheugen in plenary. We wonder how many of the acceding countries really are in a position to transpose the Community
between now and 1 May. In the event of one or more of these countries failing to fulfil the relevant requirements, we wonder too what measures the Commission intends to propose and what measures the Council intends to adopt to prevent such countries joining the Community.
I also have to say that this House was taken aback by the Latvian Government’s decision to relieve one of its members of the duty of observer at the European Parliament, because the member concerned had expressed opinions at variance with the official government line. This is all linked to the issue of minority populations in the Baltic States. The question arises as to whether these countries are meeting the fundamental Copenhagen criterion of having an open and functioning democratic system in place.
The legislative programme also contains a reference to the Union’s new neighbours. In particular, there is a suggestion of creating common areas for matters of justice and home affairs together with Russia and Ukraine. I would remind you of recent events in those countries. Leaders of industry have been arrested, imprisoned and tried. It seems likely that this was done for political reasons, not for strictly legal ones. One might well wonder how much we could have in common with governments of that ilk.
Finally, I should like to raise an issue touched upon by Mr Clegg and Mr van den Berg amongst others. I refer to the adoption of the interinstitutional agreement. I note that the President failed to refer to this agreement in any way. Though it is recent, this agreement is of major importance. It would be appropriate for the Commission to provide the House with some information on the implications of this agreement for the Commission’s legislative programme."@en1
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