Jens-Peter Bonde says farewell to Parliament

Source: press release

Date: 09 May 2008

On 8 May, Jens-Peter Bonde officially withdrew from his MEP seat in the Parliament, to be replaced by Hanne Dahl.

His position as co-president of the independence/democracy group will be taken by Irish MEP Kathy Sinnott.

Giving a farewell speech, Bonde reflected upon how the parliament has changed in the past 29 years.

“May I thank all of you for good battles on constitutions and referendums and good cooperation in our joint fight for transparency,” he said

“When I started as rapporteur for the Parliament's budget all group leaders were on the front line of cheating…nowadays group leaders are on the front line of cleaning the house even if we have had a set-back on members' assistants”

Bonde noted however that there was still work to be done.

“It took Santer 4 years to deliver the internal telephone book which was secret until then. It took Prodi 4 years to deliver the full agendas and minutes of commission meetings. It took Barroso one day to deliver a list of 3,094 secret working groups in the Commission - and over 4 years to deliver the names of the advisors,” he added.

“All European laws have to be decided by a majority in the Parliament and secret legislation by civil servants and lobbyists must stop.

All meetings and documents have to be open and transparent unless we decide on derogation,” he added.

Bonde also acknowledged the benefits of cross-party agreements in bringing about greater transparency in the EU institutions.

“Such victories were only possible because we cooperated across political lines. In the Convention I had the signatures of 23 governments, every single MP and every MEP except one, for a very simple proposal to turn the procedure on transparency,” he said.

“After 37 years of being critical of the EU, I have become more critical towards the structures and friendlier towards the persons in the system,” he added.

Finally, Bonde urged the present MEPs to continue to work towards achieving a more open EU.

“Please, safeguard that all European laws have to pass through this parliament by a public vote. Thank you, colleagues, for 29 years in our joint assembly."