Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-10-25-Speech-2-046-000"
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"en.20111025.6.2-046-000"2
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"Madam President, ladies and gentlemen
: the die is cast. I would like to begin my speech opening the debate on discharge for the Council with this phrase uttered by Julius Caesar when he crossed the Rubicon with his legion, the Invincible Tenth.
Then, as now, this quotation marks a decisive moment, a genuine watershed in the history of this legislative period and of this Parliament. It is through its power to scrutinise all the Union bodies and its budgetary power that the European Parliament expresses and, at the same time, asserts its own political priorities, and to deprive it of those powers would mean emptying the democratic principle and the right of representation of their meaning.
What we are discussing today is not therefore the assertion of a privilege; it is not, as the Council would have it, the manifestation of a desire to extort and appropriate political power at anyone’s expense. Instead, it is the affirmation of the legitimate, inalienable and inviolable role of the European Parliament, of its duty to constantly scrutinise all expenditure by the European institutions, and of its right to be acknowledged as the discharge authority.
Parliament is not a self-referential authority but an authority and institution that represents the European people. As emphasised by the legal service, that role involves a two-prong approach whereby, on the one hand, an initial accountancy stage takes place represented by the closure of accounts, culminating (as laid down in Article 319 of the Treaty) in the granting of discharge to the Commission; and, on the other, the political side of discharge is developed, in other words, Parliament’s judgment on how all the institutions, without exception, have managed their accounts.
We regretfully acknowledge the fact, however, that we have all too often been sidelined; we have all too often been obstructed by the lack of cooperation shown by the Council, which is often reluctant to exchange documents, and by its unwillingness to recognise that we are the legitimate discharge authority.
These are the grounds that enable us today to issue a strongly negative assessment of the Council’s execution of expenditure and to vote to refuse discharge. It is precisely this latter stage of the process that we have to examine today, while respecting the diversity of views, and with the sole objective of furthering the integration of Europe, which, in a word, is finally becoming a Europe of the people.
That is why we strongly believe that Europe – precisely because of its age-old civilisation and because it is a community with a destiny – represents hope and a point of reference for a soulless world, plundered by mercantilism and shaped by an absurd concept of the world and of life, which would like to strip its own role of any principles and fundamental values, such as belonging and putting down roots.
Today’s vote is also about all this: the Treaty of Lisbon has guaranteed us a high degree of efficiency and a difficult task to perform in accordance with the principles of transparency and democracy, which form the basis of the system by which Europe protects its citizens. It is in accordance with those principles that we believe we cannot yet consider the Council’s execution satisfactory. As we are certain that we are working for a just cause and the common good, we have no reason to fear a possible confrontation in the Court of Justice; nor should we fear the intergovernmental institution after our vote. I therefore call on the whole of Parliament to vote against discharge for the Council."@en1
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