Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-10-10-Speech-3-030"
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"en.20071010.16.3-030"2
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".
Mr President, I will not go over our group's general assessment of the new draft Treaty again. We oppose it, not through nationalism, Mr Schulz, which is something I despise as much as you do, but because none of the basic criticisms that characterised the debates on the old draft Constitutional Treaty – and I am not talking about the symbols of the EU, which we did not have a problem with, but the EU's political thrust – have been taken into consideration. I get the impression we will pay for this casual approach sooner or later.
Just now, I want to dwell on one specific article of the new draft, which we have already talked about: Article 24 of the Treaty on European Union. There seems to be a broad consensus among us on challenging this, and that is a good thing. It is, in fact, a sensitive issue: the protection of citizens with regard to the processing of personal data. Now, the legislative procedure that would apply would not be the same depending on whether these data were being processed within the European Union or sent to a third country. In the former case, Parliament would have full competence, but in the latter it would have no say at all.
This is a legal monstrosity and a serious denial of democracy. In fact, it relates directly to the precedent set by the PNR case, where the Council agreed to send the US authorities confidential data on passengers travelling to the United States, despite complete opposition from the European Parliament. The Council would like to continue with this situation, and is giving itself the means to do so. This is unacceptable and Parliament should signal this clearly to the European Council.
I will simply add this: this dispute indirectly reveals several facts to which my group has constantly drawn attention. The first is the little real impact the Charter of Fundamental Rights will have. In fact, Article 8 of the Charter is devoted explicitly to the protection of personal data, yet this protection is cheerfully violated and will be violated in future too. Next there is the almost indecipherable nature of some key passages of the treaties, only a very well-informed reading of which reveals this kind of trap. Finally, there is the deliberate opacity of the work of the IGC, which is as far as it could be from a public, transparent drafting of a text whose purpose is to determine the life and future of the EU of 27 and half a billion citizens.
All this confirms our demand for democracy on two fronts, on the one hand for a major pluralist debate in each country on what is at stake in the treaties, and on the other for ratification by referendum."@en1
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