kfajdsl/voxpopuli huggingface dataset:
the new action group for syria identified steps to ensure full implementation of kofi annan's six point plan and the security council resolution must come forward as soon as possible.
and in that respect i welcome the restraint in turkey's response despite the clear provocation by syria in shooting down the fighter jet and killing the air force pilots.
my thoughts go out to the families of these two pilots that lost their lives.
yet we have to acknowledge that russia must be a part of the solution to the crisis however hard that may be.
in the eu and especially during the cyprus presidency we also bear huge responsibility and should lead an open and transparent investigation into how a russian ship carrying weapons could reach syrian shores after docking in a cyprus port and being identified by the cyprus authorities.
this parliament has urged catherine ashton to start a full investigation but so far no real assurances have been given.
when unenforced eu sanctions are merely a paper reality and that does nothing to help the syrian people.
they all contribute to defining eu policies in response to the syrian crisis. we invite you to remain engaged so that all our resources and ideas are used to the maximum.
following this event both the port police of cyprus and the customs authorities issued new circulars reminding all their personnel and all ship owning companies of the existing restrictive measures and sanctions against third countries in particular
syria and iran and warning them of legal consequences in case of non compliance.
the republic of cyprus stresses its full commitment to the enforcement of european union measures and of security council sanctions against third countries.
it is a coalition government and i am not accountable for the actions of the british foreign office or the british prime minister.
if he knows he is about to be tried and arraigned before the icc he may be tempted to stay in power and cause even further bloodshed.
it is divided into two parts the first includes the most important statistics and the second a more detailed examination of cases of.
in my opinion it is crucial for the work of the ombudsman and the european institutions as well to observe the tendencies regarding the complaints.
two thousand and thirteen i would like once again to congratulate the european ombudsman on her efforts to make the institution accessible and user friendly.
i would like to thank the shadow rapporteurs for their valuable input during all stages of preparing this report our cooperation was very fruitful and i tried to accommodate most of their ideas.
this is an interesting way to explain the process but in my view including raw data is also crucial so that it is easier to spot the tendencies over the years.
two thousand and fourteen moreover i think it is important for the european ombudsman to strike a balance between the traditional and digital communication channels.
at the same time it is crucial to further develop social media strategy.
it is still possible to address a letter just with the title the european ombudsman' and it will reach her office.
this recommendation was taken into consideration and full data will be incorporated in.
i think we all share the view that the ombudsman has taken up her duties with admirable commitment and has managed to accomplish a lot considering her short time in office in.
one concerned an unreasonable delay in relation to a state aid investigation into certain professional football clubs;
the vast majority work hard to achieve high standards in their work and display a true ethic of public service.
to begin executing this strategy i first undertook as promised an internal audit of the procedures and practices of the ombudsman's office.
recently we made further constructive suggestions and i expect the commission's response to those suggestions in march. in recent weeks i have also listened to the new juncker commission.
two other major ongoing inquiries of significant relevance concern how the commission manages potential conflict of interest when eu officials leave for employment elsewhere the so called revolving doors' issue and an ongoing inquiry into how the european medicines agency supports the transparency demands of parliament in relation to clinical trial studies for medicines in the eu.
indeed the commission is actually leading on many issues of good administration in the eu today and for that they deserve our recognition.
the report shows a clear understanding of the challenges and opportunities facing the office of the european ombudsman as we attempt to keep pace with the evolving expectations placed upon us by european citizens.
to ensure our work becomes more relevant to the major concerns of ordinary european citizens and residents i have made greater use of my power to launch inquiries in the public interest without necessarily a specific complaint as basis.
such wide parliamentary support is crucial to the success of any ombudsman and i promise to build on that support by continuing to work closely with this parliament.
to achieve greater visibility i have focused on ensuring that our work is better communicated to you the elected representatives to our stakeholders and to the public.
these changes will i believe lead to an overall better service to citizens.
and a review of our complaint inquiry processes which will allow us to identify the key cases early and to prioritise them.
we have also focused on our social media outreach and have trebled our twitter followers in one year. i hope many of you have seen our new format annual report which uses many new media technologies to make it more readable and attractive.
these committee hearings and our many one on one meetings have strengthened my understanding of our work together at european level and have fed directly into the strategy i have developed for my office. my task as the third european ombudsman is to take the office to the next level and make sure it continues to succeed and to thrive.
the chair stepped down after my intervention and the commission has since made the work of the ad hoc ethics committee more transparent which i welcome.
there are reasons to hope that we are slowly beginning to emerge from the painful recession and banking crisis.
a review of how we draft our case decisions to make them more citizen focused;
two thousand and fourteen following again the strong intervention of a coalition of concerned members of parliament and civil society and an inquiry by my office into the lack of transparency around the ttip negotiations the council released the mandate for wider public scrutiny which i welcome.
gap'. this is why it is so important for the eu administration to be not only of the highest possible quality but indeed to be the gold standard' in ethics transparency accountability and effectiveness. my task as european ombudsman is to work with the institutions and agencies to help make that happen. as you the members of the european parliament have recently trusted me to continue as european ombudsman i promise to do my best to continue working to fulfil that
i believe the new strategy has already had a positive impact and i am very grateful to all of the officials in the institutions i have dealt with for their largely positive engagement with my office.
each time i have benefited from your expertise your advice and support and from that of the staff who support your work.
however as we know trust in both the eu and national levels of governance is not always very high at the moment in europe.
this involved consulting with staff at every level and is leading to a number of internal changes including the introduction of a modern complaint handling system a process begun by my predecessor which will enable us to achieve greater internal efficiencies in complaint handling;
in relation to the european medicines agency i believe the intervention of my office together with concerned members of parliament and civil society helped to make sure that their new transparency policy was not rolled back as it had appeared it would be when details of the new policy were announced in.
i cannot operate without your support and equally i work to ensure that the people you represent will have access to an independent source of investigation and redress if they feel they have been unfairly treated by an eu institution.
media commentary and media monitoring suggest that that strategy is having a significant impact with details of our cases and other work now regularly featuring in the brussels media outlets and also in mainstream member state media and further afield. in addition i now send you the members a digest of our work and i hope i have demonstrated my willingness to have ongoing dialogue with you on subjects of mutual concern.
with an office of around seventy staff i see it as my duty to use the resources at my disposal to the maximum possible effect.
a review of our key performance indicators;
it is a huge source of support for me personally for my strategy and for my colleagues who work hard on a daily basis to implement that strategy.
i appreciate the fact that the committee on petitions welcomes these inquiries in point twenty four of its report.
i have been heartened by the commitments on and the real progress made toward greater transparency openness and accountability particularly by vice president timmermans on my right here today and i pledge to work as collaboratively as possible with the commission at all levels to help them achieve those goals.
to that end i appointed an own initiative investigation coordinator whose job is to drive the own initiative inquiries in collaboration with her colleagues and to ensure that the outcomes are both speedy and effective. last year we opened own initiative inquiries into the transparency and balance of commission expert groups the transparency of the transatlantic trade and investment partnership negotiations the way in which eu institutions are implementing the new rules on protecting whistle blowers the commission's handling of the european citizens initiative the way in which fundamental rights are protected in the eu cohesion fund programmes and how frontex ensures compliance with the charter of fundamental rights in its important and difficult work.
my work at the end of two thousand and thirteen when i took office and over the past year of two thousand and fourteen has been about putting those words into action.
in december two thousand and thirteen we had a positive response from the commission in two major cases.
to conclude can i put on record again how impressed i am by the high standards of the european civil service the thousands of dedicated people who work in the eu institutions and agencies all over europe?
my strategy is to combine three objectives to ensure relevance to increase visibility and so to achieve greater positive impact.
the commission as you know has also announced other steps forward on transparency.
task. finally let me conclude by again thanking the rapporteur the shadow rapporteurs their staff and the secretariats for all the work on the report and i look forward to listening to your contributions and questions.
the insistence by the ecb that because the irish central bank printed that money that must now be taken back into circulation.
it served its purpose bought some time for the euro prevented the onset of the feared contagion had those banks been allowed to fail.
growing numbers taking their own lives;
you talk about confidence in the european institutions;
i ask you please as a priority to have a look at this abomination.
growing numbers suffering from depression;
it began in march two thousand and eleven when three billion was destroyed and resumed last year with the destruction of a further one billion in two tranches of five hundred million each. this obscenity is the legacy of the bail out in two thousand and ten of the failed institutional investors in two failed non systematic irish banks.
so you have this obscene situation where a broke hugely indebted country where the austerity programme has already wrought havoc especially among those who can least afford it is forced to borrow thousands of millions to destroy.
i am really very proud to be part of the leadership of what i would call one of the best administrations public service has in the world. but i am also committed to improving the way it works to making sure that we work more transparently that we are more accountable and that we also change
i fully concur with what mrs o'reilly just said namely that the level of quality of our institutions is not reflected in the level of support from european citizens and we need to work on that if we are to get the mandate from our constituents to do what needs to be done
they have a strong dedication to improving the quality of our administration and to answering enquiries and complaints from european citizens and it is in all our interests to make sure that her work is successful.
i will support her and work with her very closely to make a success of her recommendations emanating from these strategic investigations.
here again i offer cooperation within the possibilities we have legally to improve that on the boards of these agencies etc.
i have noted also the conclusion that the percentage of complaints concerning eu agencies has almost doubled.
i also want to salute and welcome the approach of the ombudsman to focus on strategic investigations because strategic investigations can discern patterns and patterns are the things we need to change if we want to improve the way we run our administration.
to create more prosperity and to create more jobs and to create more security for european citizens.
transparency openness access to information respect for the rights of citizens high ethical standards essential building blocks for creating greater support for european institutions at large.
the situation when the situation is not up to the standards both parliament and the commission want.
i will take them on board.
but this is partly why i have begun to focus very intensively on the own initiative investigations to see what systemic issues i can deal with which my office and the resources that i have can add greatest value to.
some of you have challenged me and my office in relation to compliance and also challenged the commission and the agencies.
i also need to collaborate well with the commission and with the agencies.
what i have said to individual meps is that if they wish to work with me and if there is a particular issue or facet of the work of the troika as it relates to an eu institution that they feel i could legitimately investigate then that is something that i would be very happy to do.
equally i can also help them with their own situations.
many people have come to me over the last year to see what i can do to investigate the troika.
i see you as a very valuable resource in relation to that.
but there are a number of general issues that i want to discuss.
as you probably know as european ombudsman i chair the european network of ombudsmen and just yesterday i had a strategy meeting in relation to how they can help me.
i take everything that you say on board. i take the compliments obviously but i also take the criticism because without feedback from you who are even closer to the people than i am i cannot really know what their true concerns are.
a lot of you talked about the visibility of the office.
at the moment as the irish members know there is an investigation into the banking collapse and the financial crisis in ireland. they are trying to get the ecb over to explain itself to the irish people and we will see how that evolves.
they have to trust me just as the citizens have to trust me.
two of the things i am doing include for the first time next year producing an annual report on the work of the network in which i will highlight not just my own work but also the work of the member state ombudsmen.
you have to support me if you find that my recommendations are rational and that you wish to support them because without your help i cannot succeed as i might.
i just want to make one point about the troika.
i would like to say one thing because there were a few voices of discontent but most of them i think misunderstood a very crucial point. this annual report refers to the year;
you are doing a splendid job and i wish you all the best in the future months.
specific measures should be developed to inform these communities which account for eight of european citizens about the work of the ombudsman.
secondly i want to suggest a greater focus in the work of the ombudsman on the struggle of traditional minorities in europe.
it would be extremely useful to verify how sensitive the commission is in its dealings with these issues.
i would not agree with those of you who have argued that the situation in national administrations is better than at european level.
so if you want to hold us accountable also hold us accountable on our actions.
secondly i note that we still need to do much to improve our situation.
first of all this commission is strongly committed to improving transparency and accountability. we have taken measures to that effect in the first weeks of coming into office. obviously this is not reflected in the report about two thousand and thirteen which is now two years ago.
there are many member states where the levels of transparency and accountability are not the same as in the commission and the other eu institutions but still i do acknowledge that we need to improve the situation and i will work very closely with the ombudsman to that effect.
so there is a correlation with the fact that we are the biggest institution and that we have the most effect on citizens citizens will then complain.
they are making a strong contribution to creating a more accountable europe a more transparent europe and a europe that is closer to its citizens.
would you agree with me that in this as with many other things in life size matters?
what we have here is tens of thousands of civil servants trying to be involved in every part of life with hundreds of billions of euros involved.
it is simply impossible to run an effective organisation with such a huge remit with so many great ambitions to be involved in so many things.
mr president i welcome today's report as it emphasises the crucial role that the ombudsman has to play and the importance of her three key pillars for the next five years relevance visibility and impact.
the eu can sometimes appear as a faceless bureaucracy and as parliamentarians we share a common duty with the ombudsman to make european democracy a tangible reality.
our ombudsman has been leading from the front in this regard as her actions particularly on ttip demonstrate.
a lack of transparency in the ttip negotiations has generated tremendous frustration across europe;
it only reinforces people's concerns.
our ombudsman has responded proactively investigating requesting and obtaining greater transparency.
this achievement bears testimony to the commitment and efficiency of our ombudsman.
last but not least the commission will present a report on the implementation and results of the measures adopted within the framework of the recovery plan that concern cohesion policy in the european union following the commission's commitment to submit to the european parliament such a report during the second half of.
recovery measures had also contributed to reviving and improving implementation mechanisms of the cohesion policy by simplifying as much as possible some provisions of the preparation and management of projects.
i would like to underline that this success was the result of the quality of interinstitutional work and fruitful cooperation with the institutional partners and in particular with the european parliament because all of us wanted to respond quickly and adequately to the political and economic needs. as a whole these measures have been characterised as a positive move that provided the necessary means for accelerating spending and easing implementation obstacles.
we did this through increased eu pre financing and a series of simplification measures. the legislative changes entered into force in april two thousand and nine and recommendations to the member states following the commission's communications were adopted in december.
therefore the commission proposed a set of legislative changes and targeted recommendations.
this explains why the policy was included as a key part of the european economic recovery plan.
while this is not an anti cyclical economic policy it represents a powerful and relevant lever available to the union for promoting investment in the real economy.
the overriding aim of this proposal was to speed up implementation of programmes and accelerate financing to beneficiaries for the programmes already approved for the period of this financial perspective.
two thousand and eight so we can say that this legislative package was adopted within five months which is a timetable fully compatible with the urgency of the remedies needed to be taken against the crisis.
these measures were flexible enough to allow member states to choose and implement those that are best suited to their specific national and regional environment because we know that there is no such thing as a one size fits all' solution.
to hold them to account.
there seems absolutely no reason why they should not and indeed i would encourage them to do so and do at every opportunity.
it is rather ironic that we are here talking about an aviation item when so many people have been unable to make what i know they saw as a very important debate and because of aviation difficulties. i would just like to make a couple of points i think we all agree that aviation has to pay its way in the same way as road and rail transport do
so we do need to stand by it but we also need to be really really clear that it is going to take some really careful watching.
and that the gmbm whilst not perfect does encompass our principles of protecting the single market and preventing unfair competition. it is the only game in town when it comes to a global measure.
i appeal to all of the colleagues who will be here when i will sadly not be over the next several years to make sure that they hold both the commission and icao's feet to the fire on this issue and that when we get reports as we've seen this week about biofuels and how icao have reneged on commitments made only a short time ago that must signal alarm bells that we need to use the mechanisms laid down in this report
and finally for the record for my colleague mr dance i would like to agree with him that the uk government should indeed signal as soon as possible that they intend to continue commitments under both this and the main ets scheme.
i'm particularly happy with the time limited derogation.
so i'm very happy that we are keeping pressure on them by emphasising the transparency that will be asked for by all european institutions.
last month once again in montreal icao showed how important it is that we have at least one instrument to keep pressure on the icao process when the icao council decided to take over only two of the twelve sustainability criteria for biofuels that their own environment committee had proposed.
we had to fight for that very strongly and i'm very happy that that was part of the general compromise in the end.
mr president let me start by congratulating julie girling for this wonderful result and i can only wish to have the same kind of result this wednesday when we have the final trilogue on the effort sharing regulation.
at the same time in the eu with the ets we've had a very bad experience with offsetting with huge windfall profits being made and almost destroying our system.
it means that aviation for intra eu flights will now also come under the decreasing cap of emission trading which was not the case until now.
i think that's a bit too early.
of course for international flights outside the eu we still have an exemption and we still rely on the international organisation icao.