mr president it is with great pleasure that my group can announce its support for the report by mr onesta who has done a fine job in looking at this and did it some time ago
it is a somewhat curious fact that the conference of presidents waited so long to put this report on our plenary agenda
however the fact that it has waited so long and has put it on the agenda at the same time as my report means there is a slight interface on one point between our two reports which ms frassoni alluded to in our previous debate
that is the matter of cooperation between the committee on petitions and the committee responsible for the subject matter
everyone agrees that they both have to cooperate and they need to work together but there is an argument about what you could call the bottom line if they disagree who has the final say
you can understand both sides
the members of the petitions committee feel that they have received petitions they have looked into the matter they may have had hearings they may have had a visit they have sometimes found something that is perhaps wrong in the legislation that the subject committee has dealt with and they feel they have got to grips with that and should have the final say if the subject committee disagrees
on the other hand you can understand the subject committee
why should it suddenly find another committee responsible for the subject matter just because somebody sent a petition to that other committee
you can understand both sides
what i have tried to do to reconcile the two is to say that yes of course they should work closely together and at the end of the day the petitions committee must listen to the views of the subject committee
it can if it so chooses depart from the views of the subject committee it is allowed to do so but if it does the price to pay is that the subject committee has the right to table amendments in plenary
i think that is a reasonable quid pro quo
i do not understand why ms frassoni said earlier that would destroy the petitions committee
i really have no understanding of how she could reach such a conclusion
certainly the members of the petitions committee in my group have told me that they are happy with that compromise and i think it is a workable compromise
it is a compromise
if you are an extremist on one side or the other of this argument you will not be happy but i think it is a workable compromise
it blends in very nicely with the excellent report by mr onesta and i think altogether this package will work
