14
Dec
2023
Watch
Improving the strategic approach to the enforcement of EU Law (debate)
Mr President, the right of petition in the European Parliament is the oldest participatory mechanism in the EU. They are a method for citizens to engage directly in democracy on issues such as how the EU governs and enforces laws that affect their lives. As the majority of petitions concern EU law, and as the von der Leyen Commission is the enforcer of EU law, for the petition process to work for citizens, the Commission needs to support it. Unfortunately, like many of the positive measures that this Parliament can take, petitions have been stifled and made obsolete by the Commission, who view them as irrelevant. It excludes the majority of individual petitions with the blanket reasoning that they do not raise issues of wider principle. The Commission also continuously passes the buck on petitions and enforcement, referring the questions back to Member States and national governments. This defeats the purpose of allowing EU citizens to petition the European Parliament. One of the goals of the Lisbon Treaty was to increase direct participation by EU citizens, with petitions being central to this goal. The Commission has utterly failed to honour its side of the bargain in this regard.