Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-07-03-Speech-1-052"
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"en.20060703.13.1-052"2
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Mr President, it gives me pleasure to present our interim report and I would like to thank our secretariat, the Chairman of our committee and the members for their support and work. The starting point for this report has been a disastrous personal event for thousands of EU citizens: the loss of their pension investments. The challenge now for us as the European Parliament is to exercise our supervisory powers over EU legislation. We have perhaps a once-in-a-generation chance to look in detail at the implementation process of EU law, taking one particular directive as an example. Did we the institutions get it right? Did the Member States get it right? How can we do better in the future? This fits well with our wider, better legislation agenda.
In presenting the interim report, first let me deal with two items regarding the process: one general and one particular. This is the first such committee of inquiry in ten years. Each time we have the chance to learn how to do this better in future, to build our own institutional knowledge.
We have, as always, been asked to produce an interim report but, to report properly we need all the evidence, all the studies, all the answers to our inquiries to be available. Having to produce an interim report as a matter of form is something of a distraction, although of course we like to keep our colleagues informed as to where we are. Maybe we can think about this question for the future.
This brings me to the particular aspect. Our inquiry is about the EU aspects of this case. Others have already made extensive inquiries in the UK and another, even more in-depth inquiry is due from the British Parliamentary Ombudsman in November 2006. It would be foolish for us to publish our report in advance of the information that report is likely to contain. The UK Ombudsman has had substantial access to many UK actors in this drama. It makes no sense for us to repeat the exercise, but equally it would make no sense for us not to take account of these findings. Hence we will need a little more time. This is foreseen in the report and we will ask the House to endorse our request for probably a couple more months to produce our final report.
Let me come to the ground that we have covered. This is set out mainly in the annex to the report. We have set up our working method, which involves a number of comparative studies; these have been commissioned. We have already heard a wealth of evidence, most importantly from many of the victims. Their stories have been heartrending. They have made me angry – angry that they have been let down by their experience of our internal market for financial services. For them it has not produced extra choice, but rather the loss of life savings with no redress mechanisms available.
We have learnt more details about the Commission’s implementation checks – or rather I should say checklist. Maybe we need to look for more checks in the future. We have seen the difficulty of inserting EU legislation into the existing fabric of Member States’ legal and regulatory systems. It does not always fit. We have seen that we can raise undue expectations by what is written in EU law particularly, in this instance, about the availability of compensatory mechanisms. When it gets to Member-State level, maybe something gets lost in translation.
Then there is the big missing part of the jigsaw: access to justice. Where is this in a country-of-origin regime? Let this be the real lesson to all of us. In this inquiry we have heard from victims sent from pillar to post. The Commission has now admitted, in a note to us on home and host country authorities, that this does not work. Let me read: ‘The directive can only work smoothly if there is good cooperation between home and host state authorities. It is not a satisfactory situation, where aggrieved policyholders are referred by the host state authority to the home state authority and are then sent back by the home to the host authority, thus to find themselves unable to have their case examined by either. The Commission plans to seek further discussions with Member States.’ I should jolly well hope so! If this inquiry does nothing else, I hope that we can put this injustice right.
That is an indication of where we have got to as of now; there will be much more to come."@en1
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