mr president first of all i would like to express my appreciation for the work of mrs mcguinness on this report which i know she did in difficult circumstances
she has succeeded in illustrating the great variety of the work of the committee on petitions and i would like to reconfirm as i have no doubt she expects the commission's willingness to cooperate in all ways we can with the work of the committee
i would just like to pick up on two of the points she makes in the brief presentation of the report
mrs mcguinness first of all you underline the importance of direct contact between parliament and the everyday very real concerns of citizens who petition you
i agree and i should know
you have dealt with nearly a hundred petitions coming from malta since two thousand and four which is a rather high rate when taken pro rata to the population
some of these petitions are common to many other member states as well but many were quite specific to malta
this demonstrates the useful direct contact with the citizen that the committee provides
in addition it is also true to say that a good collaboration with the national authorities and the organisation of fact-finding missions are definitely useful ingredients for your work
besides agreeing on the importance of working directly with citizens the second thing i would like to pick up on is the general issue of fundamental rights
they crop up in many places in your report whether about nationality and related rights individual and family rights or the right of property and as you know it very often happens that people who petition parliament about their fundamental rights end up being disappointed
this is because such rights more often than not turn out to be outside the scope of community law as you have just rightly pointed out
to use your own words there is a lot to be done to separate the wheat from the chaff those concerns which we can work on and those on which we cannot
my wish my very sincere wish is that your report will help people to see this clearly and realistically
with these two comments which i am sure will be taken in the spirit in which they are intended i would just like to say that i wish the rapporteur every success and thank her again for this report
