Mr President, ladies and gentleman, first of all, I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs González Álvarez, for all her input in the Committee on Petitions and the great understanding that she showed in dealing with all the Members and with me personally, in her work in the Committee on Petitions. She has now chosen to take the office of minister in the Asturias regional government, and we congratulate her on this appointment and wish her every success in the work that I am sure she will carry out with her usual sensitivity. I would also like to pay tribute to Mrs de Palacio, and to the Commission as a whole, for relations between European Commission officials and the Committee on Petitions have gradually been normalised and regularised, with the members of the Committee on Petitions becoming increasingly involved in Commission issues and with the officials working on the issues raised by the public ceasing to use bureaucratic language. This is testimony to the growth of the institution of petitions, the increase in citizens’ awareness in approaching this body to make their problems known, in other words in the increase in awareness of European citizenship and of the European dimension that is gradually filtering through to the citizens. The statistics and data provided by Mrs González Álvarez show that the number of petitions, and the number of people signing them, has increased dramatically. This growth in the number of petitions and in the number of signatories shows the extent to which this House and the European Institutions are providing increasing guarantees where citizens’ problems are concerned. The citizen is dwarfed by the gargantuan nature of the institutions and of globalisation. I believe that we certainly need to make the right to petition a reality and to make proper use of the institution of the Ombudsman and anything else that can help to increase the stature of the citizens in the face of the huge undertakings of the present and the future. We have also carried out a mission in Italy – the country currently holding the Council Presidency – calling for strengthening of this body, not least as part of the overall programme of the European Presidency. We met the minister, Mr Buttiglione, the deputy-ministers, Mr Caldoro and Mr Nucara, and the vice-president of the Chamber of Deputies, Mr Fiori, but, most importantly, we met with the four presidents of the bodies which, to some extent, take the place of a national ombudsman, that is Professor Rasi for privacy, Professor Ranci for energy, Professor Tesauro for competition and Professor Cheli for communications. We asked them to focus on the fate of the citizens in their areas of competence rather than resolving conflicts between companies and between institutions. Indeed, very often, these institutions are distracted by the need to resolve conflicts between powers. We, on the other hand, have an issue to resolve that is greater than conflict between powers: ensuring that these institutions are genuinely representative of the citizens. There must, therefore, be continual checks to monitor the adherence of the institutions to the mandate conferred on them by the citizens, and this will only be possible if we succeed in strengthening the role of these bodies designed to protect the citizens. I would like to add very briefly that, as the Committee on Petitions, we need to create an organic system within Parliament for consultation with other Committees, and this will probably be achieved by means of an internal parliamentary regulation. Furthermore, there should never be any conflicts of competences; rather, we must work together and cooperate. As regards own-initiative reports, I would like to say briefly that perhaps we should amend the Rules of Procedure in this regard too, for the own-initiative reports decided by the Conference of Presidents should certainly reach plenary, having already been processed at Committee level with the appointment of rapporteurs, the drafting of the report, and so forth, and they must not be blocked by any organ. If there has to be a filter, I believe that this should be applied as early as when the proposal to draft such a report is being considered. The third and final point relates to the restructuring of the Committee on Petitions. I am not in favour of nominalism. If the Committee on Petitions is not to remain as it is but is to perform other tasks, then it is absolutely necessary to provide for a restructuring of its secretariat; otherwise, this will not be possible. If the secretariat is to remain, with the same structure, then the Committee on Petitions cannot deal with anything else.

Political group: PPE-DE