Johannes Voggenhuber, on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group. – (DE) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, sometimes – not often – it happens that the large groups in this House have something on their conscience. Sometimes you can tell, because a matter is dealt with late on a Monday night in Strasbourg.

That is the case today because, otherwise, the public might be interested in why a report that was rejected by the committee should come to this plenary session. The public might also be interested to know why a rapporteur, on behalf of the committee, is presenting a report that does not contain what he is presenting and that was not rejected by one vote – as Mr Corbett claimed – but by the majority of the committee, and for good reason.

The public might be interested to hear that you are tabling this motion in plenary in violation of the Rules of Procedure – that is, with a view not to voting on the motion but to doing something entirely different.

I have been a Member of Parliament since 1990. During this time I have become familiar with a consensus regarding parliamentary culture, and that is that the majority in a parliament does not use its voice, its weight, to create privileges and powerful positions for itself in the Rules of Procedure at the expense of other groups. That is what you have done here. You have violated this taboo. What is being said here is fraudulent.

The major groups simply want to prevent smaller groups from forming and to put pressure on Members from all countries in the Union to join their groups, to prevent the parts of their own groups that are breaking away from doing so. They want to adjust the Rules of Procedure according to their taste and to tailor-make their groups. In doing that, they are disregarding another taboo, which is that it is unacceptable to use formal tricks to get rid of existing groups, such as the Independence/Democracy Group. That is out of the question in a political democracy.

This is becoming a tradition, Mr Corbett. I have researched the last two years, and we shall discuss this before the elections: over the last two years, the larger groups in this Chamber have tabled a series of amendments to the Rules of Procedure, all of which have the same outcome: strengthening the power of the larger groups, diminishing diversity, reducing the rights of individual Members and curtailing the rights of the smaller groups.

If that is the way to make Parliament popular, to respond to the crisis of confidence amongst citizens and to prepare ourselves for the electoral campaigns next year, then you will find us to be vigorous opponents on this issue, and proponents of a democratic Parliament.