Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-10-24-Speech-3-507"
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"en.20071024.47.3-507"2
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".
Madam President, fellow Members, it is now so late that I can count just four of us here, including myself. However, one of the next speakers is a Quaestor who, I am sure, will use this opportunity to ensure that these forms of so-called debate, which in reality only take place for the purpose of the records, become more efficient and rational. Nevertheless, I am grateful, Commissioner, for your willingness to come here and subject yourself to this. To my mind, better governance, efficient and transparent governance, would be rather different from these debates at such an ungodly hour.
As to the matter in hand, we have come here to resume work on an issue which goes back some time. It is a key area, namely statistics. On the one hand, we have an entirely justified and necessary interest on the part of most persons involved in the political process, which is to inform themselves and to find out more quickly and in detail about linkages which may exist, especially in the corporate sector, and how they work, especially across borders: borders which, happily, we have already dismantled successfully between many countries throughout Europe.
We have thus taken up the Commission’s proposal and taken it forward in response to this need, always being careful – through my numerous discussions at the time with my excellent colleague from the secretariat of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, from first reading onwards – not to create even more red tape, not to erect even more bureaucratic obstacles, and not to inflict even more form-filling on businesses in the Member States through the amendments and simplifications and, in some cases, more precise controls that this entails. This goal has been achieved.
What has not been achieved is a situation in which the data available on the basis of the new directive is genuinely accessible to a wider interested public. We could have done more to facilitate transparency. Nonetheless, it was important for the House to achieve swift and clear results from first reading onwards. Unfortunately, having achieved an appropriate consensus, and soon after its adoption here – I am not aware that there was even one vote against in the House – amendments were made in other areas of the legislature, with the result that the report, which we believed to have been dealt with conclusively, suddenly could no longer continue in its present form. This has meant that at second reading, we have now had to make some minor changes consisting of just two words in three places.
Taking account of all that has happened, the question which arises, as I have said, is this: was that really necessary? Would it not have been possible to inform us, through better coordination of the exchange of information on and during decision-making, so that we could have spared ourselves this whole evening debate, which is a debate in name only? We could have dealt with it at first reading, if we had adopted the report a few weeks later.
The fact that we are sitting here at all is a classic example of how, in the European Union, it is often the minor detail which causes the hitches. There is an urgent need to push through all the initiatives which aim to achieve better coordination of the minor details of the legislative processes which are then played out on a large scale in Europe. This would then remove any future need for the type of debate which we are enduring now and would also save money, if we consider what it costs – from the first to the second reading, with all the preparations, all the interpreters and translations, and all these meetings at such a late hour – which would certainly be in the European Union’s interests and improve its work on behalf of citizens."@en1
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