Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-09-13-Speech-2-565-000"
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"en.20110913.42.2-565-000"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, many thanks to the rapporteur for his excellent report. With the help of the Committee on Petitions, the citizens of the European Union can draw attention to possible breaches of European Union law or their own national legislation. This enables the Members of this House to find out at first hand what effect the European Union is having on people’s everyday lives. The right of petition is one of the most important and most clearly defined rights of people in Europe. The fact that people are continuing to submit a large number of petitions shows that they know how to use this right.
In my speech on the 2009 annual report, I called for us to improve our internal processes. We have succeeded in doing this, in particular with regard to the petitions which do not meet the necessary conditions. I would like to give my sincere thanks to everyone involved, including the Members of this House and the petition administrators. We will continue working to ensure that everyone receives an appropriate response as quickly as possible.
One central theme of many petitions is environmental law. I think that there are two areas for improvement in this respect. Firstly, we need better communication between the Commission and the Member States. The information is often incomplete and not up-to-date. This problem is generally caused by a cautious information policy in the Member States. The Commission is genuinely making an effort in this respect.
Secondly, in particular with regard to complaints concerning long-lasting environmental projects, we need instruments which will allow us to intervene during the planning phase and not to wait until the end of the project or, even worse, until the building stage is completed. If we then establish that the project was in breach of current legislation, but the building is already in place, it is very, very difficult to rectify the situation in these individual cases.
Finally, I would like to remind everyone about the citizens’ initiative which was adopted this year. This instrument will allow the citizens of Europe to play an active part in political events in future. For me, it is essential that the Committee on Petitions is given an appropriate role because it is the only genuine citizens’ committee."@en1
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