Mr President, 'top that!' is a saying in England. The Ombudsman has covered my report in as much detail as I could cover it. However, I have one or two points. It is a great pleasure to see the previous Ombudsman, Mr Söderman, in the official gallery. He was enormously helpful in the preparation of my report, as was his successor. Some of the recommendations that I make at the end under the subheading 'Where to from here?' were produced as a distillation of their wisdom, and perhaps my nerve. It has been a remarkable achievement by the previous Ombudsman to have placed the role so firmly in the consciousness and on the map of administration. I am very pleased to learn that after repeated requests, both by the Committee on Petitions and others, that the Commission is now considering very seriously that it will sign up to the Code of Good Administrative Behaviour. Mr Diamandouros has already reported to me that speed seems to be gathering and that something might be achieved by 2005. He has no doubt been cracking the whip behind the Commission very hard indeed. There are, however, one or two other points I would like to endorse. The investigative role of the Ombudsman in conjunction with Parliament is very important. There are frequently issues which emerge not only from a complaint or, in some cases, from a petition to the Petitions Committee, but there are more general points which need to be looked at. I would welcome an extension of the powers of the Ombudsman and an extension of cooperation, not just with the Petitions Committee, but with other areas of the European Parliament. It is also encouraging that the Ombudsman has initiated the establishment of, and continues to work with, national and regional ombudsmen. If I remember rightly, he will be holding a conference in the next couple of years in which he will be bringing the threads together so that European citizens have some commonality of approach to ombudsmen, whether at regional, national or European level. I would urge him, if possible, to have at least one member of the Petitions Committee attend that conference, so that there is continuity – a seamless approach. We all know how easy it is for matters of importance to individual citizens to fall into the gap between one department, commission or directorate and another. One of the jobs that this Parliament must do in conjunction with the Ombudsman is to ensure that those gaps are as small as possible and as few issues fall into them as we can manage. It has also been important in developing the relationship with the citizens of the new Member States. We forget, perhaps, how familiar we have become as citizens with many of the institutions and how familiar we are with some of the mechanisms. The figures that the Ombudsman quoted show that the European citizen has become very aware of the institutions. However, this is not necessarily the case in the new Member States. Therefore, perhaps we should concentrate our resources and our efforts into bringing their level of awareness and understanding up to that of the rest of the European citizens. Once again, I should like to thank Mr Söderman. He was unfailingly courteous to me and, on more than one occasion, showed he had not only a great grasp of his subjects but also perhaps a slightly atypical sense of humour when dealing with the results. I would like to commend this report to the House, and thank the present Ombudsman for his kind words. (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE