Diana Wallis speaks at opening of Citizen's Consultation event in York Saturday 24th March

5.00.00pm GMT Sat 24th Mar 2007

The European Citizens' Consultations provide the first-ever opportunity for members of the public from all Member States to debate the future of the European Union across the boundaries of geography and language. Citizens reflecting the diversity of the population are chosen randomly to take part in the deliberations. They identify common ground and make recommendations to policy-makers. The results aim at inspiring European as well as national institutions as they prepare to take decisions on the next phase of Europe's development. The UK event was held at the University of York on Saturday and Sunday 24-25 March 2007. Local Euro MP and Vice-President of the European Parliament, Diana Wallis, made an opening address at the beginning of the Saturday session.

In her remarks Diana Wallis MEP said:

"I am fully supportive of the work of the Power Inquiry and indeed of the work of this event. However, I would like to see people involved in the decision-making process and not just in 'consultations'.

"The Power Inquiry itself made a recommendation to introduce citizen's initiatives and that is something I would support wholeheartedly. It was one of the provisions of the original EU Constitutional Treaty and I am hopeful that whatever emerges from the revived Constitution, or even mini-treaty, this element of direct democracy will remain in place.

"One of the other reasons to welcome what you are doing here today is the fact that we hear mainly from the disproportionately high level of lobbyists who are active in Brussels which sometimes drown out the voices of the ordinary citizen in the process. You need to be our most important reference point in the decision-making process, after all politicians do not know it all. We need the direct involvement of those we aspire to represent to help and guide us in the legislative process.

"On the specifics of what you are discussing today I want to give you two examples of where we could do with your views, rather than that of lobbies or governments. The first is a matter of consumer protection i.e. when we buy items over the internet. Increasingly, as consumers, we are buying more and more items from other EU countries over the internet. But what happens if things go wrong? There is a proposal currently before us that ensures that consumers would always have the protection of their own home legal system. However, business is lobbying strongly the other way round that they cannot comply with 27 different legal regimes and it should be their system that applies. Yet who is the weaker party here? Who needs protection? Who needs to be able to make a claim simply? And if a consumer is not confident about buying then will business actually retain its customers? So perhaps it should be a case of the customer is always right; it should be part of the service. What do you think, should we give into business on this one?

"A second example is that related to divorce. More and more people are getting married to people from other EU countries. Sadly some of these marriages end in divorce. The issue here is the question of enforcement of maintenance orders for spouses and children. Currently, there is a lengthy and complex two step process which involves getting an order in your home country and then going through a second set of procedures in the partner's country to get it enforced and to get them to pay. The Commission has suggested a one step process which would mean that the original order gained in the payee's home state would be immediately enforceable in the other country without further action. Sounds like a good deal for many women and families in difficult circumstances but at the moment our government does not want us to participate. This is a huge loss for many people where the EU could be doing something very practical to help. What do you think?

"I would like to see much more public debate on these issues. They are not, as you see, merely of a technical or legal nature. They are issues which affect many people's daily lives, especially when we have encouraged them to regard Europe as a borderless space with one internal market from which we can all benefit."