madam president i am grateful for this opportunity to explain how i voted on this very important report
we all know that when different parties are involved in sensitive political negotiations sometimes there is a need for secrecy in order to avoid a deal being scuppered
however this is not really what we are talking about in this case
recently there have been negotiations on the anti-counterfeiting trade agreement and some of the issues that have been debated include a massive erosion of individual civil liberties
there have been proposals for example to search people's ipods and laptops when entering countries to check for copyright and non-copyright material
were we able to debate these in an open and transparent manner
no because these documents have been kept secret perhaps for justifiable reasons but reasons that we do not really understand
therefore what we really need is more openness and more transparency in order for us to really get to the heart of the issue
i completely agree with my colleague mr callanan when he says that the fact that they were not transparent does not bode well for the eu
