FINAL
A6-0354/2007
5.10.2007
RAPORT
privind modificarea articolului 173 din Regulamentul de procedură al Parlamentului European privind stenograma
(2007/2137(REG))
Comisia pentru afaceri constituţionale
Raportor:
Richard Corbett
PE 390.737v02-00
CUPRINS
PROPUNERE DE DECIZIE A PARLAMENTULUI EUROPEAN.............................................3
EXPUNERE DE MOTIVE..........................................................................................................5
REZULTATUL VOTULUI FINAL ÎN COMISIE.......................................................................8
PROPUNERE DE DECIZIE A PARLAMENTULUI EUROPEAN
privind modificarea articolului 173 din Regulamentul de procedură al Parlamentului European privind stenograma
( 2007/2137(REG) )
Parlamentul European ,
– având în vedere scrisoarea Preşedintelui din 12 aprilie 2007,
– având în vedere articolele 201 şi 202 din Regulamentul său de procedură,
– având în vedere raportul Comisiei pentru afaceri constituţionale ( A6‑0354/2007 ),
1. hotărăşte să aducă Regulamentului său de procedură următoarea modificare;
2. reaminteşte că această modificare intră în vigoare în prima zi a următoarei perioade de sesiune;
3. încredinţează Preşedintelui sarcina de a transmite prezenta decizie, spre informare, Consiliului şi Comisiei.
Text în vigoare
Amendamente
Amendamentul
1
Articolul 173
Stenograma
(1) Pentru fiecare şedinţă se întocmeşte , în limbile oficiale , stenograma dezbaterilor.
(2) Vorbitorii au obligaţia de a retrimite textul discursurilor lor Secretariatului cel târziu în ziua următoare celei în care l-au primit.
(3) Stenogramele se publică sub formă de anexă în Jurnalul Oficial al Uniunii Europene.
Stenograma şi înregistrarea audiovizuală a dezbaterilor
(1) Pentru fiecare şedinţă se întocmeşte stenograma dezbaterilor sub forma unui document multilingv în care toate intervenţiile orale apar în limba lor originală.
Acesta se publică sub formă de anexă la Jurnalul Oficial al Uniunii Europene şi se păstrează în arhivele Parlamentului .
(2) Vorbitorii au obligaţia de a retrimite corectările făcute la textul discursurilor lor Secretariatului în termen de o săptămână.
Deputaţii pot solicita traducerea unor părţi din stenogramă într-o limbă oficială, la alegerea lor.
(3) Se realizează şi se păstrează în arhiva Parlamentului European o înregistrare audiovizuală completă a dezbaterilor din fiecare şedinţă, care include banda sonoră a tuturor cabinelor de interpretare.
Aceasta este pusă la dispoziţia publicului pe internet.
(4) În măsura în care discursurile, în special cele pronunţate în cadrul şedinţelor solemne sau de către reprezentanţi ai altor instituţii, au fost deja traduse în alte limbi, traducerile sunt puse, de asemenea, la dispoziţia publicului pe internet, sub formă de anexă la raportul multilingv menţionat la alineatul (1).
(5) Biroul stabileşte normele de punere în aplicare referitoare la stenogramă şi la înregistrarea audiovizuală.
Acesta poate decide traducerea şi publicarea în unele limbi sau în toate limbile oficiale a unei dezbateri deosebit de importante.
Biroul urmăreşte evoluţiile tehnologice şi poate pune la dispoziţia publicului, pe internet, traduceri automate neoficiale.
Biroul adoptă măsurile tehnice corespunzătoare, menite să garanteze perenitatea ansamblului de date arhivate, în special verificarea periodică a stării suporturilor de date, duplicarea acestora şi păstrarea diverselor copii în locuri separate .
EXPUNERE DE MOTIVE
By letter of 12.4.2007, the President informed the Committee responsible for the Rules of Procedure of an orientation taken by the Bureau with a view to adapt the format and publication of the verbatim report of proceedings (Rule 173) to the needs and possibilities of an European Union of 27 Member States by September of this year.
Our committee was asked to look into the matter and draft a report on a possible amendment of Rule 173.
1.
The current situation
There are currently two versions of the verbatim report of proceedings (Compte Rendu in Extenso – CRE): a ‘rainbow’ version, containing the speeches in the original language in which they are delivered, and a translated version, where each speech is translated into other official languages.
The CRE is published electronically in the Official Journal (on CD-ROM and on the internet).
It has not been published in the printed version of the Official Journal for several years.
Following the enlargement of the European Union on 1 May 2004, Parliament has continued to have the CRE translated into the 11 ‘older’ official languages only, owing to insufficient capacity for translation into the languages of the new Member States.
This derogation from the rule of translation into all official languages based on Rule 139 will be in force until September 2007.
As the justification provided for differential treatment as a result of the derogation is the fact that translation into all languages is impossible for practical reasons, it is clear that such a situation should not last; that such a situation should be seen as nothing more than a temporary measure, and that a fairer system must be found.
2.
The orientation chosen by the Bureau
On 16.1.2006, the Bureau "agreed ... on the principle that verbatim reports of proceedings in the plenary should be published as a multi-lingual document including speeches in the original language only, on the understanding that filmed versions of the debates, together with live interpretation into all the official languages should be made available to all Members and to the general public on demand on an appropriate technical support (e.g. initially DVDs, subsequently video on-demand via the internet);" and
"decided that Members of the European Parliament should be entitled on demand and at short notice to have extracts from debates translated into their official language of choice".
If this option is put into practice a complete audiovisual record of proceedings will be produced.
This record will include video images of the plenary session as seen live on Parliament's teledistribution system, with separate audio streams from each of the interpreting booths.
This record can, as at present, be provided in the form of DVDs, but will in time also be available in the more convenient form of "video-on-demand" via the internet, notably through Parliament's Web TV channel, itself expected to be operational in late 2007.
The audiovisual record of proceedings will provide an immediate, convenient, and searchable visual record of proceedings, accompanied by an audio stream from each of the interpretation booths.
It will therefore provide a complete, reliable and accessible record of events in plenary for all citizens.
In addition, Parliament's services will produce a complete original language record of all speakers' interventions.
This so-called "rainbow" version will constitute, in the form of a multilingual document, the new format of the verbatim report.
Further, the proposal is that a "translation on demand" facility be provided, whereby individual Members of Parliament be able to request the translation of specific extracts of the verbatim report into another official language.
It should be possible for Parliament's services to provide a rapid service.
Naturally, the speed which can be guaranteed will depend on the length of the extract requested and the number of requests received from Members.
Only experience will show what level of demand is to be expected for the translation on demand facility.
It seems reasonable that, in the first instance, the service be provided on a trial basis by Parliament's translation service.
To this end, the Bureau should prepare rules covering the terms and conditions on which the service can be provided, notably the deadlines that it will be possible to respect for given amounts of work.
If demand is high, and the trial period reveals that the translation service cannot provide this facility without adversely impacting on other work, the possibility that the work be outsourced might have to be examined at a later stage.
3.
Alternatives and position of the Rapporteur
3.1.
Alternatives
In terms of quality and transparency of information, and equal treatment for all citizens, it is clear that the ideal solution is the translation and publication of all debates of the European Parliament into all the official languages as Rule 173 (1) provides up to now.
Hitherto, this solution has simply not been possible, owing to the paucity of translation capacity in the Member States which acceded in 2004, hence the current derogation.
However, it seems that numerically sufficient resources exist on the market to handle translation into all current official languages, including Bulgarian and Romanian.
Nevertheless, there are aspects to this solution which should be considered:
• Cost : The translation department estimates that the cost of translating the debates of Parliament could be kept to a figure in the region of EUR 10 million per annum.
This is not by any means an insubstantial amount, and considerably exceeds even the highest cost estimate of running an EP Web TV channel in 23 languages for a year.
• Cost-benefit : One must also consider this expense in the light of the likely readership of parliamentary debates, notably if one excludes potential ‘home’ audiences able to read the original language of delivery and ‘institutional’ readers within the Brussels circuit, accustomed to operating in a small number of ‘vehicular’ languages.
3.2.
Position of the Rapporteur
As laid down in Rule 96 "Parliament shall ensure the utmost transparency of its activities" as a basic requirement of parliamentary democracy.
One element of this transparency is that what has been said in Parliament must be recorded somewhere in written form.
A further element of this transparency is that the proceedings in plenary must be accessible to all citizens of the Union in the official language which they use.
It is also one of the traditional aspects of what being a Parliament is about: a place where debates are recorded for immediate political use and for posterity.
The question is, however, whether this accessibility of proceedings must be guaranteed in the form of systematic written translations into all official languages or whether oral/audiovisual records may be regarded as sufficient.
Your Rapporteur, after weighing the arguments brought forward during the debate in the Bureau, is of the opinion that the cost and cost-benefit considerations justify indeed opting in future for an audiovisual record accessible via the internet in order to guarantee the accessibility of proceedings for all citizens.
The needs of the work of Parliament justify at the same time the provision to the Members of 'qualified access' to the proceedings in the form of written translations of individual speeches.
Furthermore, some leeway could be given to the Bureau to decide that some very important debates should be translated and published, at least on Parliament's website, in some or all languages.
Furthermore, if a speech has anyway been translated, as is often the case for speeches at solemn sessions or statements by European Council Presidents, it should also be made available on the internet.
Finally, the Bureau should monitor technological developments and see whether a computer-translation could be useful, at least to provide a rough idea of the content of speeches which could be useful for electronic searches using key words, where researchers can verify quickly whether they wish to look at the video.
The Bureau should be assigned explicitly in the Rules the task of laying down implementing rules and it should monitor closely whether the new regime meets the needs and expectations of the public and produce, possibly in the context of the review of Rule 139 foreseen before the end of the legislative period an evaluation.
REZULTATUL VOTULUI FINAL ÎN COMISIE
Data adoptării
2.10.2007
Rezultatul votului final
+:
–:
0:
19
7
1
Membri titulari prezenţi la votul final
Jim Allister, Enrique Barón Crespo, Jens-Peter Bonde, Richard Corbett, Andrew Duff, Maria da Assunção Esteves, Ingo Friedrich, Bronisław Geremek, Genowefa Grabowska, Anneli Jäätteenmäki, Sylvia-Yvonne Kaufmann, Jo Leinen, Íñigo Méndez de Vigo, Rihards Pīks, Adrian Severin, József Szájer, Riccardo Ventre, Johannes Voggenhuber, Bernard Wojciechowski, Dushana Zdravkova,
Membri supleanţi prezenţi la votul final
Elmar Brok, Carlos Carnero González, Klaus Hänsch, Alain Lamassoure, Stavros Lambrinidis, Gérard Onesta, Georgios Papastamkos, Bernard Poignant, György Schöpflin, Kathy Sinnott, Alexander Stubb, Mauro Zani
Membri supleanţi (articolul 178 alineatul (2)) prezenţi la votul final
Othmar Karas, Eoin Ryan, Rainer Wieland
