Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-05-23-Speech-3-118-000"
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"en.20120523.6.3-118-000"2
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"Mr President, I shall begin with some ‘thank yous’, firstly to the secretariat of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs (AFCO), and, in particular, Tamás Lukácsi, for his assistance in drafting this report. I would also like to thank Commissioner Šefčovič and Minister Wammen from the Danish Presidency for their willingness to engage at an early stage in this process. Their contributions in the AFCO committee and to me personally have been very welcome, and I look forward to working further with both of them in order to reach an agreement which is satisfactory to all the European institutions. I would also like to thank the shadow rapporteurs from the other political groups for the very cooperative atmosphere in which we have negotiated this report.
Now we know from past inquiries that without any form of sanction for refusal to testify, for false testimony or for bribery, the committee lacks teeth and can lack legitimacy. What we are proposing in this report is to give the European Parliament the same basis for sanctions that exists in many Member States, and my report was based on very detailed studies of national parliaments’ committees of inquiry.
I think it is also important to note that, of course, Parliament is not a court. Any sanctions for false testimony or bribery would have to be enacted by the Member States under an agreement reached in this reform.
With regard to the final conclusions of a committee of inquiry, however, the remit is simple: to uncover the truth. We do not hand down sanctions, we do not hand down sentences, we do not take any legal action. That would be for others, based on our recommendations.
I look forward to working with the other institutions and with my colleagues in finding a satisfactory conclusion to this report and I am optimistic that the three institutions can agree.
This is an ambitious report and a very timely one since the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty. Back in 1995, when I was the rapporteur for this Parliament on the Maastricht Treaty, we successfully advocated elevating Parliament’s ability to hold a committee of inquiry to a Treaty-based function. Since then, the powers of the committee have not changed. Committees of inquiry are a tool for Parliament to investigate allegations of maladministration in the implementation of EU law. In their investigations, committees can speak to individuals involved and request documents to see if there have been any breaches of law or elements of corruption in the administration of the law.
I would like firstly to outline the importance of this role for Parliament in exercising its supervisory powers, before getting to the substance of the report and to the procedure. There have been three committees of inquiry in the history of this Parliament: one on the Community Transit Regime, one on bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) and, more recently, one on Equitable Life, the UK life assurance company. The Equitable Life inquiry concluded that Parliament lacked the ability to get to the truth because we could not speak to the people involved, we could not ensure access to documents and there were no consequences for false testimony. It is perhaps not surprising that the last inquiry committee struggled to uncover the truth.
We have gained significant new powers in the European Parliament over the last two decades, but our role in democratic scrutiny now needs to be brought into the 21st century. Since the Lisbon Treaty, Parliament is on an equal footing with the Council in its role as a legislator, and has significant powers of budgetary control, but in the area of democratic scrutiny, we lack the tools to uncover the truth.
In the same way that most national parliaments have the tools at their disposal to uncover fraudulent implementation of national law, it is the European Parliament’s responsibility to investigate maladministration of EU law on behalf of European citizens. Fundamentally, a committee of inquiry tries to uncover the truth about the past. As that great philosopher Bob Dylan said: ‘Truth is an arrow and the gate is narrow that it passes through’.
It is not an easy task to inquire into the past and uncover the truth and, without the ability to access documents and individuals, Parliament cannot perform this democratic duty effectively. It is a role which Parliament takes seriously and has not used frivolously. With only three committees in the lifetime of the Parliament, there should be no concerns that this tool will be overused.
So why are we reforming the rules now? Firstly, because a much-needed update to the rules has been pending since the conclusion of the Equitable Life inquiry and the recommendations that it made. Secondly, because the Lisbon Treaty has elevated the rules on committees of inquiry into a regulation. In fact, under Article 226 of the Lisbon Treaty, Parliament has the unusual role of policy initiator. We are acting here in what is usually the Commission’s role, and my report is the policy proposal to which the Council and Commission must give their consent.
There are three important elements of a European Parliament committee of inquiry which are addressed in my proposed reforms. The first is the ability to speak directly to the individuals involved in the issue. A major problem identified in the Equitable Life inquiry was the inability to request specific individuals. Instead, in many cases, the institutions in question would send a spokesman. I think it is vital that, when we are looking into decisions which were taken, we are able to speak directly to those who were involved, or to the experts on a particular issue.
The second issue is access to documents and the ability of a committee of inquiry to see documents which are directly related to the inquiry. Thirdly, the ability of a committee of inquiry to visit the Member State and to see for itself the context of the investigation is vital."@en1
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