Simon Busuttil (PPE). - (MT) Mr President, much mention has been made of European citizenship as having been created through the Maastricht Treaty. One ought to remember that the Treaty also grants the right to petition, meaning the right of any citizen who feels that his or her rights have been breached to present a complaint, namely a petition. And the best way for one to exercise this right to petition is precisely through the Committee on Petitions of the European Parliament, whose function it is to help remove any obstacles which might hinder citizens from exercising their rights. These obstacles are listed in this report. I have also followed this report in two other committees. In the Committee on Civil Liberties, we were unable to reach an agreement regarding an opinion for this report, due to the fact that – in my opinion – instead of focusing on existing rights and seeing how these are to be respected, we attempted to focus on other rights and issues which do not fall within the European Union’s area of competence. This led to our being unable to reach an agreement regarding the aforementioned opinion. As already mentioned by Mr Grech, there also was an opinion in the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection. What I found most interesting in this opinion was the concept of a ‘one-stop shop’ for citizens, which makes it possible for citizens to present their complaints to one single place instead of having to refer to several different places to present the same complaint. At the end of the day, if we really want to be close to the citizens, the first thing we have to do is ensure that their rights as European citizens are respected.