OVER 50,000 people signed a petition to the President of the European Parliament, Jose Maria Gil-Robles, calling for an end to Anglo-Irish quarantine rules for domestic pets. This action was just another example of the growing numbers of citizens of the union who are sending petitions to the Parliament.
Roy Perry (UK, EPP) told MEPs that, in the past 10 years, the number of petitions to Parliament in a year had increased from 500 to over 1,000. Many of these were signed by large numbers of people four million signed the petition opposing tests on live animals in the cosmetics industry. However, individuals can also petition the Parliament, said Mr Perry. Many of these have, as a result, had their grievances redressed.
Mr Perry commended the work of Mary Banotti (Dublin, EPP) in "tug of love" cases, where abducted children, whose rightful guardians had petitioned the Parliament had been returned to them. Petitions, concluded Mr Perry, showed that "we (in Parliament) do listen to the citizens' concerns and problems".