Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-09-22-Speech-1-119"
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"en.20080922.20.1-119"2
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"Mr President, first of all I would like to thank the rapporteur, David Hammerstein. I am very pleased that Mr Hammerstein prepared this report, since he is one of the most committed and outstanding members of the Committee on Petitions. He is someone that I have enormously enjoyed working with over the past four years. I would also like to thank all the other members of the Committee on Petitions, as well as those who have already spoken and also those who are about to speak on this matter, and also the secretariat of the Committee on Petitions, which is doing great work. As can be seen from the report presented to us by Mr Hammerstein, the number of petitions has grown enormously. This is the work that has been weighing on the secretariat.
The Committee on Petitions is a very special committee because, as has been mentioned before, it does not work on legislation in the same way as other committees; instead it works primarily to create communication between European institutions, especially the European Parliament, and our citizens. As Mr Busuttil reminded us, the European Parliament enjoys an enormous amount of trust and this trust results from, among other reasons, the work of our Committee. These 1 500 petitions do not just represent 1 500 people. Behind these petitions there are often hundreds of thousands of people. I would remind you that with regard to the issue of a single seat for Parliament, there were over a million signatures. With regard to the issue of references to God and Christianity in the constitution, there were over a million. For the COPE radio in Barcelona, there were 700 000. Tens of thousands of signatures on the petitions concerning area management plans in Spain, concerning Equitable Life and Lloyds. Millions of EU citizens know that the Committee on Petitions is part of the European Parliament and they know that, very often, this is their final possibility of redress. Unfortunately, I do not have the time to speak any more on this subject. Once again I would like to thank everyone who has taken part in the good work of the Committee on Petitions.
I would also like to say that the Conference of Presidents of the Political Groups rejected the report from the European Ombudsman concerning improper administration in the European Anti-Fraud Office. That is a great shame!
The Leaders’ Conference also rejected a report concerning discrimination against children from broken families in Europe, which we called the Jugendamt, the Jugendamt report. It was about discrimination against children from broken families where one spouse is German and the other of another nationality. I am very sorry that the Conference of Leaders did not help European Union citizens to get help from the European Parliament."@en1
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