Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-10-27-Speech-4-017"
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"en.20051027.3.4-017"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I thank Mr Mavrommatis for his excellent report, and also the Ombudsman.
The institution of the first ombudsman in Europe dates back to 1809 in Sweden. As an Italian citizen, I should, however, like to mention that it was Giuseppe Mazzini – the bicentenary of whose birth is this year – who instituted the petition by allowing people, both individually and collectively, to submit petitions under Article 10 of the Constitution of the Roman Republic of 1849. It was he who had the idea of a political association of Europe’s peoples in a Europe made up of free nation states federated together: the precursors of the concept of Europe that gained shape and substance a century later in the initial core of the current Union.
Our Ombudsman’s annual report, which is being examined today, gives us an idea of the desire of citizens to interact with Community institutions. The fact that we have to consider, however, is that 72% of the 3 726 complaints received lay outside his competence. It is also significant that 51% of cases were reported by citizens in the enlargement countries. That means that the perception that citizens have of the Union and of their representatives is still confused, that Community citizens are undeniably well aware of their rights, and that they want to exercise their citizenship by complaining. It is also obvious, however, that they are not able to identify the right recipients for their complaints.
The Ombudsman figure and the petition have been a success. That is a fact that cannot be ignored. Today, however, we have to look more closely into the reasons for the mistakes and why people make use of them wrongly. I believe an effort should also be made to reduce the time needed to examine complaints – as was also mentioned in the Mavrommatis report – by improving information exchange and cooperation among the institutions wherever possible.
Ladies and gentlemen, the office of the European Ombudsman was set up by the Maastricht Treaty as a part of European citizenship, which is still an ongoing issue that requires new rights as a result of enlargement and the complexity of migration and globalisation. I think our Ombudsman has fully met the three objectives that he undertook to fulfil: promoting the rule of law; good administration and respect for human rights; and enlargement – and hence closer contact with all citizens, including constant relations with ombudsmen throughout Europe. A political analysis of the data shows, however, that Europeans recognise and thus complain to Community institutions while effectively bypassing national institutions. Therefore, even though people’s perception of Europe corresponds to a different entity – which they imagine endowed with powers and competences – that perception often cannot be made real. We therefore have to do better at orienting European citizens towards our institutions, while accepting the people’s mandate to call on governments to be more open and to transfer areas of sovereignty for the sake of making European action more incisive.
As has been mentioned, the Ombudsman is an independent, impartial body. He has to cooperate with all the other institutions and I believe he will do so to the best of his abilities, with our cooperation and that of all the institutions."@en1
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