Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-10-10-Speech-3-084"
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"en.20071010.17.3-084"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the report on the composition of seats at Parliament contains some obvious contradictions, reinforced by the letter sent by the rapporteurs yesterday, as if to justify their position regarding such politically delicate questions, and it distorts the legal concept of citizenship as it has always been codified.
The principle put forward by the report goes beyond both nation states and the treaties. From a legal viewpoint, European citizenship is the legal status enjoyed by those, and only those, who hold citizenship of a Member State and who are, as a result, in possession of all the rights and duties connected with that status. It is citizenship, and not residence, which must be the test. This proposal also distorts the approach taken in the draft of the next treaty, which clearly specifies that the concept of citizenship has nothing to do with residency.
The European Parliament has wasted a great opportunity to demonstrate to the other institutions the capacity to find within itself solutions based on legal principles that are commonly recognised and shared. I would ask the rapporteurs why they did not even consider the possibility of using, for the purposes of allocating seats, the number of citizens in the Member States rather than the resident population.
Perhaps it was to benefit some states more than others? Look at the case of the United Kingdom, which grants the right to vote in European elections even to those who are not EU citizens. Mr Lamassoure and Mr Severin: stating, as you have done, that nobody has been penalised as compared with the Nice agreements, seems to me an obvious distortion of the truth, which others will be called upon to remedy.
For this reason, we cannot back this report. Not only that, but it is also detrimental, not only for our country – my country – but also for the other countries of the Union. It is also detrimental to representative democracy and the future treaty, which, as you yourselves recognise, contains guidelines and principles on which the distribution of seats at Parliament ought to be based. We cannot ignore the concept of European citizenship as the basis of the democratic legitimacy of our Parliament."@en1
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