GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Mr President, the European Union considers that pensions are yet another expense which needs to be cut back within the framework of the financial discipline imposed by the Stability Pact and is indifferent to the needs of those who have retired from work. On the pretext of the ageing population, it is promoting an increase in the retirement age, an extension of working life, cutbacks in pensions, the dissociation of pensions and wages and increased financial contributions by workers. At the same time, the European Union and the Member States, with the recent reforms, are using pensions to support the profitability of big business. They are reducing employer benefits and offering them the resources and reserves of the pension funds, promoting the spread of professional pension funds and forcing workers to rely on private insurance schemes, thereby exposing their pensions to the risks inherent in the financial markets. We support a different policy, where pensions will respond to modern social needs. We and the workers are calling for a reduction in the retirement age and working life, for pension funds to be financed from the national budget and for an increase in employers' contributions, coupled with a reduction in employees' contributions. This sort of social insurance system can only be imposed by the workers, by fighting against the choices of big business and the European Union.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, Commissioner, I should like to support Mrs Jeggle’s report and the statements she has made by asking a few very simple questions. Commissioner, I think it is in your interest to use the support offered by the Members of the European Parliament in order to attempt to safeguard your budget for agriculture. When we see the way in which money is being used and diverted to finance other measures, we have good cause to wonder if we shall still have the resources to implement a European agricultural policy after enlargement, and moreover to ensure rural development. When you achieve savings on cereals through moisture rates, how many millions does that amount to throughout Europe? And how are these millions going to be used? Do not forget that it is the intermediate regions that will be the first to suffer the effects, not the good cereal-growing areas, the main cereal-growing areas, but rather the regions where there are average production levels, where many farmers are currently experiencing problems. Looking across the board at agricultural regions, I am forced to note that it is these small- and medium-sized farms whose continuity is not assured, where the farmers’ children are looking for careers outside agriculture. I therefore think that this policy calls for caution, Commissioner. And you have our support. The agricultural budget must be used to promote rural development and to step up support to the family-type farms that exist at grass-roots level, rather than containing only budget measures whose sole purpose is to make savings. Commissioner, we are counting on you a great deal. We are speaking from the bottom of our hearts. Within Parliament we are aiming to defend the family farm.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, a resolution on the freedom of the world press makes no sense unless it contains, firstly, the solidarity of this Parliament with a Basque, Spanish and European journalist, Mr Gorka Landaburu, the recent victim of an ETA attack immediately following the Basque elections. Secondly, it should contain a clear call for the protection and guarantee of the freedom to exercise the profession of journalist, threatened as it is – and this is something that Parliament should be aware of – in a part of Europe, the Basque Country. Mr President, the political wing of ETA was severely punished at the ballot boxes, and what was its response? The immediate response of this criminal organisation, once again, was to intimidate, threaten and make an attempt on the life of a journalist who was doing nothing more than defending the values on which European society is based, defending peaceful coexistence and defending the freedom of the Basque people. The enemies of freedom of expression, of democracy and of life do not deserve to be citizens of the Europe that we are building on such strong foundations as freedom, security and justice for those who live and move around in European territory. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the aim of the amendment that my group is tabling and which I hope will receive the support of the political groups in this House, and I also thank Mr Sánchez García for announcing it.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, I am speaking here on behalf of those who dream of a truly united Europe of regions and peoples, a Europe that the proposed constitution will not bring about. As is stated in the Tsatsos report, it is a major step in the Union’s democratisation process, but we are still not developing into the decisive and transparent Europe that can play a role on the world stage and inspire confidence in its own citizens. Sovereignty only rests with a few Member States that boast their own constitutional structure. The diversity of languages and cultures is only recognised within the Member States that grant this recognition. The regions that have constitutional authority are witnessing the accession to the EU of some ten new Member States, some of which are smaller than those of their own regions that possess constitutional powers, such as Flanders, Scotland, Catalonia, Wales, and so on. These sovereign states may even be less willing to work towards the establishment of a real Union. This will become clear shortly in the IGC. However, the small states are also our allies. I would like to urge them to help defend the result that has been achieved in this convention. At least a certain balance has been achieved in these texts. There is a certain unity in diversity, but we should, above all, continue to uphold these latter aspects together.

Political group: Verts-ALE
In the light of the principles of subsidiarity and democracy, I find it hard to entertain the idea that the European Union should be given its own right of taxation. This applies also to the field of transport. These proposals would, according to the calculations of the Dutch Government, increase the price of petrol by a further 15 per cent and the price of diesel by 21 per cent, as well as increasing the price of tickets for medium and long-distance train journeys by almost 50 per cent. The consequences of this for sparsely-populated Swedish counties which have already been hit, such as Dalarna with its high levels of outward migration and considerable decrease in population, are obvious and totally devastating. The rapporteur wishes to introduce new Government taxes and EU taxes, and also levies on roads, railways and airports, car insurance, lorries and buses, petrol and diesel. Part of the funds obtained would go to the Governments of the Member States and then be earmarked for investments in infrastructure, and part would go to the Commission to use as it sees fit. Should the resolution be approved by the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers, the EU would be given its own direct power of taxation, as in an actual nation state. That is a development to which the Swedish do not wish to contribute. I take a very serious view of further increasing the costs of transport for people and goods. It is patently obvious that this will be a merciless blow which will fall hardest on the sparsely-populated counties. Moreover, it is hardly in keeping with the spirit of the European Community to make it more difficult and considerably more expensive for people to meet each other in and between the various countries.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, during the Strasbourg part-session I called on you to take up the case of a number of Cuban dissidents arrested in that country. They are members of the Christian Liberation Movement. A wave of new arrests took place during subsequent weeks. Journalists, dissidents and human rights defenders were targeted. It should be noted that all this coincides with the opening of the Commission’s permanent representation in Cuba. It also comes at a time when many Members of the House were giving favourable consideration to extending the Cotonou Convention to include Cuba. It may be desirable to continue dialogue with the Cuban people and their government, and to keep channels of communication open. Nonetheless, Mr President, I appeal to you once again to take up this cause and press for the release of these Cuban journalists, dissidents and human rights defenders. (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE
The annual report on the human rights situation in the European Union, on the one hand, and in the world on the other is a laudable and useful means of reviewing the Union’s policy in this area. It is certainly a necessary undertaking when we think of the infringements of human rights perpetrated against millions of men and women in too many parts of the world. I will confine myself to two specific issues in this debate. First of all I am thinking of the disturbing decline of the situation in Tunisia, at this very moment. In the coming five days alone, militant democrats will be further harassed with at least three political trials coming up: the trial of the journalist Sihem Ben Sedrine, brutally arrested as he stepped from the plane; Doctor Moncef Marzouki; and Fathi Chamkhi, President of ATTAC Tunisia. The European Parliament has already, on several occasions, condemned this unacceptable repression. Yet it still needs to acquire effective tools and the necessary political will to ensure respect for the Association Agreement provisions on human rights, so that it can exert pressure that goes beyond mere words. This question is all the more topical when we remember that on his visit to Tunis Commissioner Patten reaffirmed that Europe wants to act in close conjunction with Tunisia to give new impetus to the partnership. It is indeed a real and beneficial partnership for the people on the two shores of the Mediterranean, but it must be based on the recognition of freedom of expression, movement and opinion. So when will we see a special Association Council on these issues with Tunisia? The human rights situation really has declined. Arrests, violence and torture are the common lot of the militant men and women who support human rights and who quite simply want to establish and live in a free society. But there are also signs of a decline in the rights that affect the day-to-day life of every individual in the European Union itself. Everyone, be he a European citizen or a foreign resident, has the essential right to a job, to acceptable wages, to a roof over his head. The same applies to political rights, to the right to be treated as a full rather than a second-rate citizen in one’s place of residence. Accordingly, it should become the established rule that third-country nationals who have resided in the Union for at least five years have the right to vote and stand for election, as advocated by the Council of Europe since 1992. Let me conclude by saying how urgently necessary this is to the very future of a Union based on solidarity when we remember that the prospect of several candidate countries’ participating in the elections... (The President cut the speaker off)

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, I am glad Mr Bolkestein confirmed that he will not submit a new proposal. But he also referred to the review clause in the proposal. Can you assure me today, Mr Bolkestein, that you are not going to give in to France by permitting it to subsidise its shipyards in order to get agreement in the Council in December? Can you confirm that you will make no agreement with France before that meeting?

Political group: ELDR
I myself come from one of the EU’s border areas, Dalecarlia, in central-west Sweden, on the Norwegian border. Is it too early to get an opinion or could I already ask the Council whether it imagines that foreign soldiers might be responsible for some border protection duties? Might British soldiers, for example, be expected to assist Spain with its external border protection or French soldiers help Sweden protect its borders with Norway or with Russia in the case of maritime borders? Would German soldiers be able to assist Finland in guarding its external border with Russia? Are these perhaps the lines of thinking? What would be the language of command? Should there be an international language of command or should the country’s native language be used?

Political group: PPE-DE
We welcome the fact that the report, with the proposals for amendments appended to it by the and s, has been rejected. We contributed to its rejection by voting against not only the most negative amendments but also against the final resolution. We thereby prevented the adoption specifically of the proposals that insisted on: - greater flexibility in current legislation in the labour field, which would lead to those seeking employment being offered various types of employment contracts and working time regulations; - criticising the fact that the provisions relating to the internal market have not been fully transposed in all Member States, which explains why there is a lack of adequate competition. As you can see from these few examples, the report’s approach was to insist on speeding up the implementation of neoliberal policies. I am therefore happy that Parliament has rejected it.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, even though we are near the end of the debate, I would not want to speak without thanking Mr Whitehead in particular, especially for the focussed approach to which he referred at the outset, which has enabled us to dispense with a number of issues that would otherwise certainly have been on the agenda. We have seen how the discussion so far has demonstrated our unanimity as regards the objective of achieving a uniformly high standard of consumer protection. It is getting harder to achieve unanimity when it comes to clarifying where this objective ranks among the other policy objectives, and one Member said that we should support all measures that tend to promote sales. When it is consumer policy strategy that is under discussion, I think the only thing we can say to that is that our esteemed colleague is on the wrong track, at any rate where consumer policy is concerned. Consumer policy is about informing consumers, giving them freedom of choice as well as protecting them. It has also already become harder to reach unanimity on the subject of what minimum or maximum regulation should be like. This is where I am right behind our rapporteur Mr Whitehead in his approach and where I would also like to underline that this examination of specific cases must of course involve seeing whether there are in the individual states tried and tested measures that harmonisation would do away with. I believe it to be apparent from all the reports and from everything that has been said, that we are a very long way away from our goal of a high standard of consumer protection in our Community, and that this makes it coherent and logical to enquire whether the country-of-origin principle and the principle of mutual recognition should remain applicable in future. I would like to conclude by saying that I attach great importance to item 18 in the Whitehead Report, namely access to affordable and high-quality services of general interest.

Political group: PSE
In the current context and given that we are beginning to hear enlargement being questioned in certain quarters, it is important that this Parliament sends a clear political signal in support of it. That is why I have voted in favour of the Brok report. This is an excellent report which, as well as analysing the progress made and the difficulties still facing the countries with which negotiations have begun, also serves as a reminder to the public of the political and ethical commitment which the European Union, this Parliament, has made, not only to the candidate countries which wish to share our European history, and have the right to do so, but also to the political project of European integration itself. I believe that enlargement will not only favour the prosperity and economic growth of the candidate countries and, by extension, that of the current Member States of the Union, but will, above all, also provide a guarantee of peace and stability in Europe and thereby offer the European Union the opportunity to finish the task of ensuring peace in Europe, which began fifty years ago. We must remind those people who have no sense of solidarity and are concerned about the economic cost of enlargement, that the prize of peace fully justifies this cost.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, I have both spoken and voted against the framework agreement, because I think it is an insult both to freely elected Members of this House and to the electorate. I cannot understand why we are being given a two-class system of rights, why ordinary Members and even rapporteurs are not being trusted to see confidential information. This is a fundamental requirement if we are really to take our job of scrutinising the Commission’s actions seriously. I fear that this framework agreement will basically perpetuate the policy of inadequate transparency that we have seen in recent years, instead of seizing a genuine opportunity and finally attempting to do justice to our remit by ensuring greater transparency and preventing the Commission from continuing to take refuge behind confidential documents. I would have liked to have seen all Members being treated equally and no one having more or less rights – that should have been the starting point!

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, why does the Council want a competitive Europe? And why do we support this objective? For us, it is a case of safeguarding jobs in Europe and creating new and attractive jobs. That is the number one priority. The crisis in farming caused by BSE and other diseases will lead to employment problems in agriculture, the meat trade and many other businesses. That means that we need to think about how we can plan for the future and open up new possibilities for the workforce. There are two very well known approaches to moving forward here, namely investment in training and in research. As regards research, money particularly needs to be invested in market research, that is to say into what products consumers buy, and also, of course, in product research – for example, how can renewable energy be produced in the agricultural sector to counteract Europe's dependence on imports? There are two sectors that will create a great many jobs in the future. One of these is the computer industry, including the development of hardware and software, the information technology of the future, and the other is that we all want to live to a healthy old age, which means that we need social support mechanisms, and we need research into biotechnology to guarantee a healthy old age. To achieve this, we therefore need access to finance, particularly for micro-companies. Nowadays, it is almost impossible for a company with less than 10 employees to obtain finance unless the family, or extended family, can provide security. We must advocate concrete measures in this area, as companies with less than 250 employees after all account for 60% of GNP and 60% of employment in Europe.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, the House may be aware that the United States have announced this afternoon the arrest of a suspect for an alleged plot to detonate a radioactive dirty bomb on United States soil. The package of measures which were passed by this House before Christmas and immediately after Christmas on an effective European response to terrorism are still not on the statute book despite the pains that we went to deal with them quickly. On behalf of this House, I therefore ask you to call on the Justice and Home Affairs Ministers, who are meeting on Thursday of this week, to make sure that that package goes through as quickly as possible. I believe we owe it to our friends in the United States to ensure that Europe's safeguards against terrorism are as good as possible, since they are clearly still facing a very serious potential threat.

Political group: ELDR
draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism. – Mr President, I should like to say at the outset that I totally agree with the rapporteur that the current backlog of funding is completely unacceptable and that urgent action is now required to salvage the situation. In my opinion, drawn up on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, I sought to give these regulations the necessary flexibility to make them viable in three areas: in terms of enlargement, effective competition, and accountability. With 2004 very much in mind, it is vital that we address the issues of slow response and delays to the implementation of the existing TENs projects. Until Member States understand and react to strategic transport needs as covered by the TENs programme and make the necessary financial commitment, we shall find ourselves in a constant round of review and argument as to the financial requirements in this regard. On a personal note, I feel that the Commission proposal does not represent a level playing field approach since, by extending the increase of a possible 20% of project cost merely to certain modes, we are missing out on the chance for economic growth which is vital to the cohesion of an enlarged Union. I believe it is necessary to allow this increased amount of funding to be used to deal with the problems, wherever bottlenecks occur on the ground, regardless of transport mode, not according to the Commission theory of certain modes being better than others. However, most importantly, this funding must be effectively spent and transparently accountable and in this respect I warmly welcome the rapporteur's proposal for increased financial probity. I would particularly like to commend to the House the rapporteur's emphasis on the N+2 principle and the management committee of representatives of Member States. If projects cannot be completed within a reasonable time-scale, then the Commission should have the right to demand repayment of any assistance given. Otherwise money will continue to be wasted or stagnate whilst Europe's transport networks suffer.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, Croatia's application for membership represents a further step towards the stabilisation of this region. Just in the last few minutes we have received bad news from Serbia. A state of emergency was declared there a few minutes ago following the assassination of Prime Minister Djindjic. I would be interested to know if you intend to convene an emergency meeting of the Foreign Affairs Council, given that this development really does give us great cause for concern.

Political group: PPE-DE