9 Amendments of Edouard MARTIN related to 2014/2218(INI)
Amendment 42 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital H
Recital H
H. whereas petitions are discussed in meetings of the Committee on Petitions and whereas petitioners may take part fully in the discussion and have the right to present their petition along with more detailed information and thus actively contribute to the work of the Committee, providing its members, the Commission and any representatives of the Member States who may be present with additional information; whereas in 2014, 127 petitioners attended and were actively involved in the Committee’s deliberations; whereas this ratio of direct involvement remains relatively low and should be increased, including through the use of remote communication means and through scheduling to enable petitioners to better organise their coming before the committee;
Amendment 51 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital J a (new)
Recital J a (new)
Ja. whereas now a specific way of handling petitions relating to children has been adopted, insofar as any delay in these cases constitutes a particularly serious injury for those involved;
Amendment 59 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital M
Recital M
M. whereas the key issues of concern dealt with in petitions relate to environmental legislation (in particular issues concerning water and waste management, and hydrocarbon prospection, and major infrastructure and development projects), fundamental rights (in particular the rights of the child and of the disabled), free movement of persons, various forms of discrimination (on ethnic, cultural or language-based grounds in particular), visas, immigration, employment, the application of justice, and many other areas of activity;
Amendment 66 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital O
Recital O
O. whereas the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) is an extraordinary and innovative tool for participatory democracy in the European Union, which must be fully respected by European institutions (particularly by the Commission) and whose potential must be exploited fully and further enhanced in order to achieve the best results;
Amendment 115 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 6 a (new)
Paragraph 6 a (new)
6a. Regrets that more petitioners cannot directly present their cases to the Committee on Petitions, partly due to a lack of meeting time and human resources in the Secretariat; calls for an improvement in the time periods within which petitioners are informed of the handling of their petitions and their passage before the committee; supports increased use of videoconferencing or any means enabling petitioners to become actively involved in the work of the Committee on Petitions, even if they cannot be physically present;
Amendment 120 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 7
Paragraph 7
7. Deplores the fact that the Charter of Fundamental Rights has not been adopted in all the EU Member States and that many people have found its implementation to be unclear and, to some extent, disappointing; deplores the strict way in which the Commission has interpreted Article 51 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights with its stipulation that the provisions of the Charter are addressed to the institutions, bodies, offices and agencies of the Union with due regard for the principle of subsidiarity and to the Member States only when they are implementing Union law; recalls that the Commission has often said it is unable to act in the area of fundamental rights, when the Committee has so requested, citing Article 51 of the Charter; stresses the fact that the expectations of citizens are much greater toften go beyond whant the Charter’s strictly legal provisions allow for; calls on the Commission to do more to meet citizens’ expectations and to find a new approach to the interpretation of Article 51;
Amendment 130 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 9 a (new)
Paragraph 9 a (new)
9a. Denounces in particular the practice of 'slicing up' files, which is encountered repeatedly with regards to major infrastructure or drilling projects which form the basis of numerous petitions on environmental issues;
Amendment 132 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 10
Paragraph 10
10. Notes the concerns of petitioners regarding alleged cases of injustice that have occurred during the administrative and judicial procedures for separation or divorce of parents and issues relating to the custody of young children; notes in this context that in the case of bi-national couples, discrimination on grounds of nationality may occur in favour of the spouse from the Member State in which proceedings take place and against the non- national of that state, with severe and often very dramatic repercussions on the rights of the child; notes that the Committee on Petitions will conduct a fact-finding visit to the United Kingdom in 2015 to investigate complaints of this nature in situ; stresses that it has been notified of other cases involving other countries: Germany (notably in cases concerning the work of the Child and Youth Welfare Office), France and the Netherlands; stresses that a working group has been created within the Committee on Petitions to respond to these concerns quickly and coherently;
Amendment 173 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 20
Paragraph 20
20. Attaches great importance to the presence and active cooperation of representatives of the Member States during meetings of the Committee on Petitions; welcomes the presence of representatives from the public authorities of the Member State concerned, their participation and their active cooperation, with particular reference to the representatives of certain Member States such as Greece, Italy, France and Spain; encourages other Member States to follow their example;