GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Mr President, I am aware that the subject before us is extremely sensitive, particularly at this moment in history. We have been working – and I refer to this legislature, of course – over the past two years to establish positive relations between citizens and immigrants, to make equal opportunities possible and to create a form of social cohesion. Now, everyone can see the need to revise certain parts of the agenda we have been working on and, in particular, to identify how the revision of these points can be converted into positive Community legislation allowing us to grow into the kind of Europe we all want. I would now like to make three points. Firstly, we need to focus more on defining framework legislation to promote actions at regional and local levels, always in agreement with the Member States, in situations where an initiative is certainly needed to make it easier to balance the three factors which have always been the basis for our analyses of the issue of immigration and asylum. These factors are migration flows, which must be regulated and continuously monitored, integration, and the fight against illegal immigration which is often, sadly, a source of the more major concerns of crime and the exploitation of human beings. Secondly, we need a thorough debate at European level on the issues which we consider to be vital for our policies such as cooperation between police forces, judicial cooperation, common forms of control and common information systems. We must make it quite clear what financial resources we should consider adequate and quantifiable in these areas. Thirdly, we may well have disregarded or underestimated the importance of one of our tasks. We must insist on the need for the major educational programmes which are the foundations of our culture, and of multiculturalism, in particular: there must be schooling and education starting with foreign children, especially, irrespective of their legal position. These programmes are fundamental for the policies of integrating and building the societies we want. In my opinion, we must establish a substantial educational and cultural programme, a major part of which promotes communication between cultures, for that would be the first step along a path which will certainly bring about the sort of integration we desire.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, the situation in the Middle East currently presents us with a paradox. On the one hand, some of the participants in the peace talks believe that both parties have never been so close to reaching an agreement. The High Representative also seems to share this optimistic point of view. On the other hand, one of the candidates in the Israeli elections declared the Oslo peace process to be dead in the water. The fact is that we are, once again, at a crossroads where the European Union should send out a message and a warning. I address my comments to the Council and to the Commission. The message should be that it will not be possible to not reach a fair and lasting solution to the conflict between Israel and Palestine without reference to international law, such as that laid down by the United Nations Security Council resolutions. The requirements that Israel must evacuate the occupied territories, including East Jerusalem, Palestinian refugees must have the right of return, Israel must have the right to live in peace within secure and recognised borders and Palestinians must have the right to their own sovereign, viable and undivided state, whose international borders are open and which is not under military control, are inextricably linked and all these rights must be fulfilled at the same time. Jerusalem is an historic city and, as it were, part of the heritage of the entire human race. It must again become an open city again, to which everyone has access. The world community, particularly the European Union, would not allow the fair balance to be upset, putting either party at an advantage or at a disadvantage. Under these circumstances, the warning could be formulated thus: that the European Union formally calls for an end to violence and for talks to go ahead but, at the same time, as commercial partner and financial sponsor, it will take the necessary action against any parties who believe they can pull out of the talks and abandon the attempt to find a global and definitive compromise that is universally acceptable.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, I would like to revert to a subject raised during the previous session in connection with the fact that the Pakistani authorities are still holding the Greek seamen from the Tasman Spirit hostage. The accident happened in July 2003, 4-5 months ago, while the Tasman Spirit was being piloted by a Pakistani pilot in the port of Karachi. The procedure to restore the environment and pump out what oil could be pumped out then commenced. On 17 August, once the shipwreck had already been cut in two, a team from Greece headed by the shipbuilder, Mr Pappas, went to Pakistan in order to clean up the area. As we speak, both the ship's crew and those who went to clean up the area are being held hostage by Pakistan without charges and, apart from the fact that they have not released them, this is preventing the companies which have undertaken the clean-up operation from going there, because they are frightened that perhaps they too will end up as hostages. In all events, the ship was insured. The Pakistani Government may have differences with the insurance company. However, under no circumstances can the seamen, especially those who arrived well after the event in order to help clean up the environment, be held as hostages as a negotiating element between the Pakistani authorities and the insurance company. I therefore call on Parliament to do what it can to help free these hostages.

Political group: PSE
This text invites MEPs to give their blessing to an economic agreement between the European Union and the Chilean State. Once again, commercial concerns are being portrayed as acts of generosity. We profess that the new association agreement will breath new life into relations between Europe and Latin America at a time when the region is experiencing serious problems. However, it was precisely the actions of the European company predators that brought Argentina to its knees, and people are trying to make us believe that identical economic exchanges will have beneficial results! There is no reason to doubt that those exchanges will be profitable for the big investors of Europe. But for the Chilean population? A few major wealthy Chilean families will continue to become richer, such as those who have made their fortune from wine. But making those few people richer will not in any way benefit the general population. The agreement also proposes the benefit of cooperation in the fight against terrorism. As we are talking about a country where one of the major criminals of recent history, Pinochet, is enjoying a peaceful existence with the general indifference of the major authorities, that is another reason to reject this draft recommendation!

Political group: GUE-NGL
The world pays the price for keeping maritime transport artificially cheap. Ships from rich countries sail under the flags of poor countries, with minimum taxation and minimum protection for the crews, who are paid at developing-world levels. The ships are inspected on a commercial basis and by agencies who are in competition with one another and who fear that they will lose their customers if they are too strict. The coastal states try to limit the problem of cargo loss and shipping disasters by keeping transport in which they themselves have no interest as far as possible away from their coast. In the case of the wreck of the tanker Prestige off the coast of Galicia, the disaster was made worse by the Spanish authorities chasing the ship away from the coast instead of quickly accommodating it in a safe haven. Now, six months after the disaster, there is still oil coming up from the sunken wreck. The Spanish Government is persisting in its mismanagement and the rapporteur has largely chosen to ignore this. I support his proposals to promote safe havens, make guidance by pilots compulsory, encourage investigation, refrain from criminalising seafarers, make the polluter pay compensation and give money for cleaning up oil-covered animals. They remain inadequate, however, as long as companies chase after maximum profits and countries try to keep costs to a minimum.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Given the way in which the Charter seems to have been able to set its own terms of reference and its own limitations (or more accurately lack of limitations), it is necessary that fundamental questions be answered before it is allowed to develop further. Whilst it is right and proper that a legislative body such as the European Union should be bound by minimum standards of what is acceptable in civilised society, nothing will be gained if the implementation of the Charter continues to develop along the lines set out in this report. What is to happen if the European Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights develop contradictory case law? Which will take precedence? Who will gain from potential forum-hopping other than litigation lawyers? How can a legally-binding document claim that all rights are equal – whether it is the right to life or the right to strike? Are not many of these issues really political in nature rather than fundamental legal rights? Was not Commissioner Byrne right when he said that questions of education, health and housing provision – and their financial implications – are best left to elected politicians rather than judges?

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, I want to begin by fully endorsing both Mr Olle Schmid’s description of the political situation in Denmark and the request with which he concluded. I also want to say that I think there are an incredibly large number of good things in the Commission’s proposals in this area. It would of course be marvellous if we were to use our cooperation to strengthen the principles we talk so much about – democracy and human rights and, I might add, humanitarianism – instead of dragging each other down to the lowest common denominator. I think there are quite a lot of good things in Mr Evans’s report. I intend to support it and shall call for a vote in favour of it. I think, however, that there are still a lot of problems with Mr Pirker’s report. It was improved quite considerably by the committee’s reading of it. It is also, of course, reasonable to hope that it will be further improved in the course of today when we vote on it. However, a lot more is required before I shall support the report, which is based principally upon the EU’s wanting to show solidarity with itself.

Political group: GUE-NGL
President-in-Office, the justice minister of Afghanistan recently announced that the new interim government would maintain the Sharia law sanctions of stoning women to death for adultery and of limb amputation for theft. The latter penalty was even supported by Prime Minister Karzai in a statement made at a press interview in America. The EU has just pledged EUR 1.5bn in aid to Afghanistan over five years at the Tokyo Conference. Should this not be made conditional on the disapplication of internationally unacceptable, cruel and unusual punishments such as those I have just referred to?

Political group: PPE-DE
I congratulate Mr Langen on the European Parliament’s excellent own-initiative report on entrepreneurship, innovation and SMEs, which I support, especially as regards the need to encourage entrepreneurship in the European Union. I would also like to emphasise the fact that structural change in the economy, based on knowledge-based activities in the services sector, will create new business opportunities. The Union and the Member States, therefore, must redouble their efforts to encourage entrepreneurship and initiative in that sector, paying particular attention to encouraging potential entrepreneurs in disadvantaged areas, especially ultraperipheral areas.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, we will probably never know the real ecological, biological, psychological and economic magnitude of the Chernobyl disaster. As well as the deaths and the terrible illnesses in the region, 15 years on there is still a frightening legacy of radioactive contamination. An area about the size of Britain is permanently contaminated and uninhabitable. Much less tragic, but serious even so, in my constituency in Wales, following contamination from Chernobyl, 359 farms are still under restrictions today and thousands of sheep are restricted from movement to ensure that no animal contaminated with radioactivity enters the food chain. There has been continuous monitoring for 15 years and the restrictions will last for another 10-15 years. We must have sustainable energy policies. Nuclear power is no solution. It is not clean and it is not cheap. In over 40 years of operation the nuclear industry has not even solved the problem of radioactive waste and, above all, it poses massive threats to human health and the environment. Nothing illustrates that better than Chernobyl and we have to learn from it. We may never know the full impact of the disaster but we must make every effort, as outlined in this resolution, to find out all we can and provide effective assistance to help the worst-affected areas.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, Moldavia is a wretchedly poor country, it is true; but culturally it is a rich, beautiful country to the east of central Europe, linking the crisis-stricken region of the Balkans with the crisis-stricken region on the Black Sea and in the Caucasus. That alone shows just how important this tiny country is for us in the European Union, quite apart from the fact, as Mrs Schroedter rightly pointed out, that it will border on the European Union once Romania accedes and, hopefully, will itself one day become part of the European Union. Nor should we forget why Moldavia went down the terrible road which it has had to endure over the last few decades. Moldavia was the victim of the Hitler/Stalin pact and, for decades afterwards, it was plundered as a European outpost of the Soviet Union. With such a history, Moldavia does not have the strength to get back on its own feet and, as one speaker rightly said, what we have here is a very dangerous crisis waiting to happen. On one side, Russia is directly involved via Transdniestria or the so-called Dniester Republic which, from Russia's point of view, is a sort of advance guard of nationalistic and militaristic circles in Europe while, on the other side, it has cultural and historic links with Romania, and it will become a dangerous bone of contention between an EU candidate country on one side and the European Union's most powerful neighbour on the other, unless we do everything we can to stabilise this country, by which I mean we must stand up for human rights, for the rights of our Christian democrat and other counterparts in the Moldavian Parliament who are under attack, we must stand up against neo-colonialist efforts to bring this country under control through language and by rewriting history and we must stand up for democracy and the rule of law. I also think, Commissioner, that we should be more active than we have been in the past in helping with institution building, with establishing democratic institutions in this country. It is in our interest to exert a stabilising influence here.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, I believe it is paragraph 5 of the resolution which states that observation of the elections did not take place because of the refusal of the Iranian authorities. That requires correction in so far as the request was also made by Parliament. It should therefore be worded in slightly more neutral terms, in that ‘the authorities’ should be replaced by ‘the Iranian side’. May I request that correction. It is merely a matter of factual clarification. (Parliament agreed to the inclusion of the oral amendment) (Parliament adopted the resolution) Joint motion for a resolution(2) on Cambodia – Before the vote

Political group: PPE-DE
Madam President, I sent you a letter on behalf of my group requesting an amendment to the agenda on the issue which you have just addressed in a most dignified way. Since Mr Barón Crespo has raised the subject, let me make my point on the matter immediately. In my opinion, since Parliament issued a very timely joint invitation to the Speakers of the Knesset and the Palestinian Legislative Council a month ago, specifically in order to indicate its willingness to become involved in promoting the peace process, we cannot, as Members of this Parliament, remain silent today. In words with which I identify completely, you described the tragic situation developing right now in Palestine and in Israel. I fully understand that, tomorrow, Mr Prodi, the Council, and ourselves, or some of us, will be speaking in the general debate. We cannot, however, possibly limit ourselves to dealing with this tragic matter alongside a number of other very important matters, thus making it possible for a first person to discuss the Charter, the next to discuss the French Presidency and the Biarritz Summit, a third to bring up the Danish ‘no’ vote in the referendum on EMU, and only then have a fourth, on the subject of the Middle East. This would not do justice to the matter. My group and I therefore suggest that, tomorrow if possible, or another day if necessary, we look into finding a way to devote an hour to this extremely important subject, and to adopt a resolution. It this were to prove impossible, I suggest that we should at least have a question on the subject in our topical and urgent debate. In any event, I would expressly ask that we make it impossible for anyone at the end of this part-session to claim that Parliament as such did not follow up your splendid statement and declare itself in favour of a return to peace in Israel and in the Middle East.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, in areas such as human rights, the European Parliament has traditionally been, in a sense, the eye of the international community and has tried to goad the EU institutions into action. Many people believe this is totally useless, but I think they are wrong. Today we can do more than we could yesterday and no doubt less than tomorrow, but even that is very important. Rather as in the case of sustainable development, respect for individual rights must become an integral element of the Union’s external policy. It must be structured and based on a genuine strategy and it must apply as much to economic relations as to political relations. This is not yet the case, as the rapporteur, Mr Wuori, points out. But there are signs of progress. For the rest, I firmly welcome the good cooperation Mr Wuori managed to establish with the human rights NGOs. If Europe is to appear credible as a Union, basing its action on respect for human rights and sustainable economic development founded on solidarity, we will have to reject all forms of hypocrisy or ambiguity. We must take a very clear stance in our political and economic relations with countries such as China, Russia, but also Saudi Arabia, the United States and many others. We cannot disregard the fact that in these countries prisoners are executed, civilians foolish enough to belong to ethnic and political minorities are massacred, women are prevented from living free and people are tortured indiscriminately. Mr Patten raised these aspects and I hope his words will very soon be followed by deeds. Mr Michel’s statement is reassuring as regards the coming six months, and I hope even longer. I would like to ask him a very direct question. Will Belgium launch a European initiative and table a resolution in the United Nations General Assembly calling for a moratorium on capital punishment? As you know, the Finnish presidency made a first attempt in 1999, which failed. What do you intend to do in this regard, Mr Michel?

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, among the 62 amendments you are about to put to the vote en bloc from the Committee on Constitutional Affairs is Amendment No 1, but not Amendment No 73. However, these amendments are complementary. We should not adopt one without adopting the other because to do so would eliminate roll-call votes. At least it would eliminate us recording the results of roll-call votes. I am sure that is not the intention of anybody in this House, nor the intention of the group which asked for a separate vote. I would ask you to take a vote together on Amendments Nos 1 and 73 and ask the House to vote for them. It is purely a technical rearranging of the rules. There is no real matter of importance here, but it is important that we do not make a mess of it. Concerning amendment 56 :

Political group: PSE
I believe there is a fundamental contradiction between the so-called cohesion policy and the neo-liberal tendencies which dominate in Europe; in fact, widespread competition and privatisation run counter to genuine harmonisation. This involves the extension of funds providing the necessary transfers and adjustments, which would, in turn, introduce positive distortions rather than pure market phenomena and the blind quest for profitability. These funds could be provided by a unified tax on capital returns. The Musotto report recognises this contradiction in its own way, for example by underlining “the need to adapt competition policy and fiscal policy”. However, it immediately feels the need to make up for this by singing the praises of a private-public partnership. In spite of their tentativeness, the report’s suggestions are sound: it calls for a better assessment of the effects of enlargement and considers the 0.45% of Community GDP devoted to cohesion policy to be a minimum. This is why I did not vote against this report, even if it falls far short of the requirements of a genuine policy for solidarity and equality on a European scale.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the balance-sheet of five years of the European Employment Strategy demonstrates that major shortcomings remain in the creation of quality jobs with rights. Most of the jobs created during these years have been precarious, part-time or very short-term, and which fail to guarantee that equal rights and opportunities will be complied with. As stated in the report by Herman Schmid, whom I wish to congratulate on his work, unemployment remains at high levels, and long-term unemployment in particular is one of the main causes of social exclusion in Europe, to which we can add precarious and poorly paid work. Women are still the worst affected, with average salaries still being considerably lower than those of men, and women still experience considerable difficulty in being promoted to more senior and executive positions. The continuance of the restrictive monetary policies of the Stability Pact, the cuts in public investment, the insistence on privatisation, specifically of public services, relegate social and job creation policies to second place, and this is the current situation. Priority is still also being given to Community policies in the fields of competition, fisheries and agriculture that fail to take account of small and medium-sized enterprises or family-run smallholdings and of small-scale and coastal fishing, which contribute to exacerbating unemployment and prevent quality employment from being maintained. The same thing is happening with the restructuring and relocation of undertakings, specifically of multinationals, in a flagrant breach of respect for workers’ rights. It is particularly significant that there is widespread lack of knowledge in the Member States about the European Employment Strategy and that their national plans do not contain quantitative objectives, specifically employment rates for women – as defined at the Lisbon Summit – and nor are these plans being presented in the national parliaments or debates held on their content. Account must, therefore, be taken of these issues if we are to achieve positive results in the creation of jobs with rights.

Political group: GUE-NGL