Santini (PPE-DE). – (IT) Mr President, pursuant to Rule 130(3), I would like to point out that, every time we vote, we are prepared to systematically breach the Rules of Procedure of this House. Indeed, paragraph 3 states that ‘the President may put the original text to the vote first, or put to the vote before the amendment that departs furthest from the original text an amendment that is closer to the original text’.

On the basis of the decision taken yesterday by this Parliament, which annulled a good 350 amendments with an arbitrary act, I would like to ask you what we will vote on if a paragraph in the text had to be deleted, since there is no amendment left. We will have a text that is like a lump of Gruyere, that is full of holes, which can only be closer to the truth given the content of this report. This is, however, an extremely serious further breach of the EP Rules of Procedure that we are being forced to commit – or rather those who will vote will be forced to commit – on the basis of the bad decision, taken yesterday by President Cox, not to give a ruling and to make this Parliament decide to put to the vote the original text, understood as the consolidated text that was put forward by the Committee on Citizens’ Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs. That means to say a single voice, that of the left, incorporated its amendments into the original text. This itself is a distortion, to which is added a further one, which I pointed out pursuant to the Rules of Procedure.

I would say to my fellow Members – who do not know the ins and outs of this case – that they have one last chance to prevent a serious injustice, a precedent that could become dangerous for the future, by voting to refer this report back to committee or by rejecting it.