[FYI] Greens: European Parliament is obstructing inquiry on Echelon

["Axel H Horns" <horns@ipjur.com>]

http://www.heise.de/tp/english/inhalt/te/6844/1.html

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Greens: European Parliament is obstructing inquiry on Echelon  

Jelle van Buuren   09.06.2000  

Legal service of Europan Parlimant says a temporary committee cannot 
lead an inquiry.  

The Greens in the European Parliament are accusing the big political 
parties in Parliament of obstructing the inquiry on Echelon. 
Yesterday, the Conference of Presidents (which unites the leaders of 
the political groups in Parliament) has been unable to decide how to 
proceed on how to investigate into the Echelon spying system.  

The Greens asked for a inquiry committee on Echelon, which has more 
powers to conduct an investigation. This proposal was first rejected 
by the major political groups in Parliament. Instead, they proposed a 
much weaker  temporary committee. After that, they asked the 
parliament's legal service opinion on the mandate for such a 
committee. Green member Heidi Hautala qualifies this as an attempt to 
'gain more time'.  

The opinion of the legal service, which came out this week, states a 
temporary committee cannot lead an inquiry. According to the Greens, 
this was to be expected. They think the major political groups in 
Parliament are obstructing a serious inquiry into Echelon. The Greens 
now reiterate the demand that European Parliament establishes an 
inquiry committee. They reject the view that it is upon the 
Conference of Presidents to decide on such a matter and wants the 
case submitted to a vote in the plenary.  

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