Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-10-27-Speech-4-030-000"
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"en.20111027.5.4-030-000"2
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"Mr President, in our crisis-ridden world it is difficult – as many of those who have spoken today have said – to overemphasise the importance of transparency. It is clearly no coincidence that the issue of transparency is a key element in both the European Ombudsman’s report and Ms Iotova’s report. This is heartening and welcome news for Europe’s citizens. To be able to cope with the crisis it is very important that they understand what is happening around them and why, and the thinking behind decisions by institutions.
I think one of the most important elements of the Ombudsman’s mission is that he must never be biased. In other words, the Ombudsman must strike a balance between the transparency demanded by citizens and the secrecy required in other cases to protect EU interests.
Why am I telling you this? Because in a certain respect, the establishment of the European External Action Service has created a new situation by bringing European security and defence policy issues within the scope of the Ombudsman, and this is also the area where, alongside legitimate demands for access to information, there are a great many instances of actions that I would sooner class as political marketing and which, in some cases, could pose a threat to our security.
This is why it is particularly important to establish and publicise clear standards concerning confidentiality, because I believe that having clear standards would also give the Ombudsman the necessary resolve and moral authority to opt for confidentiality when the need arises – and we have already seen an example of this.
Allow me to add that we, the Members of this House, are European citizens too. In the course of my work on security policy, for example, I myself have encountered more than once situations where very important Council documents have been classified as confidential and I have not been able to read them. It would have been very useful to see the reasons for this, and I urge the Ombudsman to take up this issue.
Allow me to conclude by quoting from the report, which states: ‘Openness is the rule and secrecy the exception.’"@en1
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