Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-11-20-Speech-4-146"
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"en.20031120.5.4-146"2
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".
Mr President, I shall respond quickly, and I hope perceptively, to the main points made by several honourable Members.
In the course of this debate, the Commission has been described as discourteous, our action improvised, dysfunctional and laggardly. I guess in some ways the Commission provides an open target on which people can vent their complaints, especially when there is cause to believe that some difficulties have been encountered because of accidental
not malevolent
omissions. I would simply underline that there are those who will criticise the Commission when there is any doubt about our conforming as far as Union law is concerned. That is a political criticism we have to face. However, it becomes difficult to take when we make efforts to uphold the law and in response we are castigated for our inflexibility and dysfunctionality.
I know this House
and certainly the people present at this debate
understand the problems. To ensure that there is complete clarity on the subject
something that did not come through in all the speeches
I repeat: taking, if you like, Mr Bayona de Perogordo's suggestion that there should be a transitional approach, I would simply say that we have done rather better than adopt a transitional approach. We are not suggesting calls for proposals. We have an interim solution which is, as I announced, the waiver for 2004
although, obviously, we will require Council understanding and consent.
The Info-Points do not depend on us for survival. In most cases, and even under the original proposal to end subsidies, the Commission still offered to provide technical assistance in 2004 for those relays that wanted to avail themselves of it.
I hope no one will leave this debate with the idea that we are thoughtlessly and discourteously abandoning these critical information outlets, or the people who provide that service, to their fate. We are certainly not doing that.
Finally, let me turn to Mr Perry's comments, put with his customary delicacy and charm and all the more forceful because they were wrapped in silk and polished with scented soap. He could have quoted a number of other clichés, but they are only clichés because they are true. He missed out 'keep off the grass' and 'a miss is as good as a mile'. However, in this case it would have been quite legitimate and I fully understand that.
The whole experience has been a real lesson in the handling of the transitional requirement that arises automatically when we are making very necessary but quite sudden changes in our management and financing relationships. I hope the lessons that we have learnt will be properly applied. I also hope that the interim arrangements the Commission has suggested will commend themselves to the House."@en1
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