Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-01-28-Speech-3-149"
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"en.20040128.12.3-149"2
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"Mr President, since it is already after 10 p.m., I will get straight to the point without any preliminaries. We Social Democrats have repeatedly said, over these past months, that the priority for us – over and above the media’s one-day wonders such as calls for resignations – is the issue of how to bring about structural changes in the Commission and in relations between the Commission and OLAF. In my view, this position remains fundamental to our policies. Of course we can discuss the Commissioners’ individual political responsibility – I have no objection to that – but in light of all that we have learned from the Eurostat affair, we have to recognise first and foremost that we must put the Commissioners in a position to exercise this political responsibility in the first place. After all, what we encountered in this particular instance were hair-raising conditions as regards responsibilities, structures and information processes.
One thing I am pleased about, although I do not endorse it politically: I am pleased to see that it establishes clarity. Admittedly, there is the amendment proposed by the Liberals – I can assure Mr Mulder that I would be happy to talk about this – which, as it were, flies the flag for political responsibility. At the same time, however, I welcome the clarity with which the Liberals propose a deletion, namely of the very paragraph in the Casaca report which calls for the directorates-general to answer to the Commissioners at long last. That is a clear alternative. Structural changes are needed so that we do not face the problem, every five years, of which Commissioner we call upon to resign, while the apparatus is allowed to carry on blithely as before. That is not the alternative that we Social Democrats want to see, to put it bluntly.
That does not mean that all that glitters in the Commission is gold, however. Frankly, the opposite has generally been true. The things we have witnessed there: we have been presented, to great fanfare, with a proposal which now finally states in writing that the officials must inform the Commissioners about any landmines that might be lying around. Well, that is wonderful, I must say. I was under the impression that this was already standard administrative practice. If we have to put this in writing from the outset, what does that say about conditions in place? That is one thing that has absolutely astounded me – although perhaps I should not have been too surprised. I think we really have to say that there must be an end to the Commission always coming up with too little too late. We are fed up with it; Mr Bayona de Perogordo has already mentioned the 2002 discharge. By then, if you do not mind, you have to come up with the goods. As I have said before, if you fail to do so, we can look forward to some entertaining days together between now and the end of your term in office!"@en1
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