GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Mr President, Commissioner, I too plead for the respect of the founding principles of the CAP, against any form of renationalisation and for significant changes to be made to the CAP within the framework of the Berlin financial accords so that we can meet European society’s new expectations. Now more than ever before, all the policy’s COMs must promote or enhance the multifunctionality of our agricultural policy in order to guarantee food safety, sustainable development, rural development and territorial cohesion, in addition to animal welfare. This is what our fellow citizens now expect from Europe’s agricultural policy. This is what forms the basis of the European agricultural model, the recognition of which we must forcefully promote on the international stage. In other words, we need an agricultural industry that does not ‘produce more’ but ‘produces better’. We must make ourselves clear on this issue, however. If, on the one hand, European agriculture has no future other than to respond appropriately to the expectations of European citizens, there will, on the other hand, be no genuine multifunctionality unless the policy that is implemented provides its actors with sufficient income to enable them to make a living in all the Member States. Consumers and taxpayers must shoulder their responsibilities in this area. This means that we, as politicians, must concern ourselves, with the same degree of commitment, with both the needs of modern society and with agricultural incomes. In this area, I would warn against any approach that aims to limit the CAP to receiving only public funds for multifunctionality under the consolidated rural pillar, and submitting other areas of agricultural policy to market deregulation. Furthermore, I condemn the policy of the United States which, by means of excessive public support, will help to bring down world prices and flood our markets with GMO products. When all is said and done and to sum up, I personally plead for a restored CAP which, first and foremost, is based on a budget equal to its priorities, with public support that is distributed fairly amongst farmers depending on modulations. Secondly, a CAP that is based on an enhanced market management policy that promotes quality products and reduces our reliance on certain imports, such as those of vegetable protein. And thirdly, a CAP that is based on a policy relating to agricultural incomes which guarantees the continued existence of farms in all the Member States. Any change to the CAP that dismisses these three requirements would deceive both the citizens and farmers of Europe.

Political group: PSE
Thank you very much for your reply, Commissioner. It shows that the Commission has understood the problem. As a supplementary question, I would like to know whether, in accordance with your reply, you foresee, or support the idea, that women immigrants should be informed of their rights within the European Union. Could women immigrants be provided with services to defend their rights? I would like to hear your opinion and whether you have any intentions in this respect.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, Commissioner, I would firstly like to congratulate the rapporteur. On the basis of a Commission proposal with the best of intentions and leading us in the right direction, I believe that the rapporteur presented the committee with a good draft report and that the result achieved by that committee, as the rapporteur pointed out, is highly satisfactory. It would be a good thing if the Commission and, subsequently, the Council could take up the proposals of this Parliament’s Committee on Regional Policy. Europe is constructed on the basis of agreements and consensus. We are dealing here with an example of what, in many cases, this way of operating has consisted of: gentlemen’s agreements. But from now on many of these agreements must be reflected in the Treaties, with a relevant legal basis. This is an extremely important issue, as the rapporteur has pointed out very effectively. We are dealing with European territorial construction. For this we need clear, homogenous and geographic criteria. These criteria must be based on politico-administrative criteria – forgive my repetition. We must not create fictitious units which, in the end, only lead to a lack of confidence in European construction on the part of the different States, the different regions and the citizens. I am therefore pleased with the proposal from the committee. I would lastly like to point out an amendment which rather reflects what we are talking about: the amendment by Mrs Cerdeira on the division of the cities of Ceuta and Melilla, which are politico-administrative units, each with its own status. In this specific case I would like to point out how Mr Hernández Mollar, from my group, also fought for this recognition for a long time, and I believe that tomorrow, when the report presented by the Committee on Regional Policy is approved, we will have achieved a satisfactory result. This is an example and a reflection of what we want in terms of the division and structuring of Europe.

Political group: PPE-DE
Madam President, I propose inserting an oral amendment in the text before us because, otherwise, it does not make sense for the parts removed include the introduction. The oral amendment is as follows: ‘believes that the setting-up of such a forum ...’, and the text then goes on in the manner with which everyone is familiar. (The President declared that there was no opposition to voting on the oral amendments) (Parliament rejected the motion for a resolution) * * *

Political group: PPE-DE
The White Paper, which Mr Bowis’ report broadly endorses, does not define an imperative policy, which is a great pity. Yet, the creation of a European Food Safety Agency is a very positive step. However, as some Members have said, we must guarantee its independence. That means providing it with adequate financial and human resources. For our part, we believe that a tax on agro-business profits would be a way of releasing these resources. In order to respect the principle of transparency, we must also authorise the referral of cases to the agency by the unions and the various professional associations, in relation to both consumption and ecology. Sound scientific risk assessment, coupled with an effective strategy of communication with the public, cannot by themselves stamp out the food crises. That is something of a technocratic view, which makes the mistake of overlooking the cultural, social and economic dimensions of food. We need a stronger political will to resolve certain crises. Take the current mad cow disease crisis. We should be able to ban the incorporation of animal meal in feed and withdraw the licence of food manufacturers who do not respect these rules. IN THE CHAIR: MR COLOM I NAVALVice-President

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, I wish to express the sorrow that I feel, that we all felt, at the appalling devastation wrought by the Madrid terrorist attack and to express our sympathy and solidarity with the families of those murdered, and with the injured and their families. I should also like to express my profound admiration for the public-spirited and dignified behaviour of the people of Madrid, and for the extraordinary efficiency of all of the emergency services provided by institutions at state, autonomous community, city and municipality level. The maturity with which Spanish society has behaved, as in other communities afflicted by appalling man-made disasters, confirms Spain as a country that is rooted, both civically and democratically, in Europe. All of this took place without any xenophobic reactions or statements, and without any backlash against specific religions or countries. In light of everything that took place and the admirable behaviour of the people, it is essential that we adopt strong and democratic measures in the EU in the fight against terrorism. We must also, however, fight vigorously to prevent a militaristic polarisation of views and an ideology that is simply anti-terrorist from taking root in Europe and we must fight to ensure that our societies are never ruled by such ideology.

Political group: Verts-ALE
I voted in favour of Mr Pirker’s report and I would like to draw attention to the quality of the work carried out by our rapporteur. I am glad that Parliament is finally taking a decision on such an important subject. For almost twenty years, immigration as a subject of public debate has been treated only emotionally or unrealistically. How could it have been otherwise, when the subject has virtually become a major stake in the internal policy of every Member State of the European Community? It also has to be admitted that, in the eyes of the public, the policies being followed are, on the one hand, inefficient when it comes to combating illegal immigration and, on the other, unjust in the case of proper immigration which is legal and useful to the development of our society. It has now become vital to make a clear distinction, both in law and in practice, between proper immigration and improper immigration, and finally to define criteria and then stick to them. While several international and European organisations all emphasise the risk of shortages of qualified workers in Europe, we must learn to adapt, like certain Anglo-Saxon countries, and open up European society to the immigrants that it so badly needs in several sectors, including informatics and new technologies. To conclude, real courage consists in campaigning for deep-seated change in the world economic order. Justice and ethics would then count for much more than they do in the moralising extremism of those who would like to demand total freedom to live and work in Europe, like those who would like to turn our European Community into a mere sanctuary.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to start by thanking Mrs Ayuso most warmly for the work she has done. The Common Market Organisation for agricultural alcohol was voted down in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development. We are convinced that the Commission should withdraw this proposal and revise it. Whilst the Spanish Presidency would very much like to wrap this issue up during its term of office, I do not think this will be possible, quite simply because Parliament will not have produced a position for the Agriculture Council in due time. There are three key issues; firstly, for example, the title of the act. Is a Common Market Organisation appropriate, or a simple regulation? Secondly, to what extent do we include synthetic alcohol? Thirdly, is there the need for a regulation on state aid? As discussions currently stand between Parliament and the Commission, these issues have not been resolved. If the Commission were to abandon its dogmatic position on the Common Market Organisation, it could surely agree to the regulation providing for the purely statistical supervision of synthetic alcohol. This way ahead would be possible even without extending the legal basis. I reckon that a qualified majority in the Council of Ministers could adopt the lightweight Regulation that was originally called for. I continue to be highly sceptical about the aid provisions, on which many questions remain unanswered. On the issue of universal land use management across the whole of Europe, which includes the sparse areas, and also on the twofold task of agriculture, which is both the cultivation and raising of agricultural products and the care and maintenance of the cultivated landscape, we must support producers of agricultural alcohol through the production of corn, potatoes and fruit. My appeal to the Commission is this: please, let us not needlessly wreck a system that works.

Political group: PPE-DE
The European Union rests upon fundamental principles of freedom, democracy and respect for human rights. If, however, I have misgivings about introducing a new set of human rights into the EU Treaties, this has to do with the confusing signals which would in that way be sent out and with the fear that existing instruments which are operating well would be put at risk. In my view, a declaration would be more appropriate. The European Convention on Human Rights is an excellent tool for protecting human rights in Europe. It involves enforcing these rights on the basis of judgements given by the Court of Human Rights, which has developed considerable expertise in this area, as well as extensive case law. The Convention also has the advantage of not being limited in scope to the area of the EU but of operating in relation to almost the whole of the European continent. At the same time, it is the European Court of Justice’s practice to take account of the national fundamental rights applicable in the Member States. This practice could be affected if the EU were to obtain its own set of fundamental and human rights. – Jackson resolution (B5-0227/2000)

Political group: PPE-DE
Where European Union law exists, the Member States, who are supposed to enforce it, ride roughshod over it. This is acknowledged by this report, at the same time as it blandly speculates what legal bases might make it possible for adherence to it to be compelled. The members of this union of states, obliged to join together, but competing with one another in order to defend their own bourgeoisies, apply Community law only in so far as their big businesses and major industries find it convenient for them to do so. Although the rapporteur makes reference to the steps taken by the European Court of Justice in support of Community law, the same Court is incapable of preventing the law of the jungle from being the only law that prevails in this competitive society. The most it will be able to do, then, is to make the smallest European powers comply with a few rules, whilst grovelling before the larger ones as it has always done.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I feel that this Action Plan is a major step forward in the fight against discrimination, partly because, in these so very complex times, in the highly complex societies we live in, discrimination takes many other forms which are ever more unexpected and give ever greater cause for concern I would like to focus on one point of the Action Plan which, as I said in committee, I feel leaves large gaps: the inclusion of Turkey. It is not that Turkey should not be included in this Action Plan, but we are financing a State – which I may define as criminal – without any insistence at all that these funds should be used to eradicate the worst form of discrimination, namely discrimination against the Kurdish-speaking Turkish citizens. Therefore, we are providing funds for Turkey to use as it likes without any obligation to eliminate the worst form of discrimination, which is a combination of all forms of discrimination in that, if there is discrimination against Kurds in general now, discrimination against Kurdish women, people of Kurdish origin with deviant sexual tendencies and disabled people of Kurdish origin will soon follow. There you are. We would have liked to compel or, at any rate, prompt Turkey to eradicate the genuinely widespread discrimination currently practised in that State. We are therefore extremely confused regarding this point, and we call upon the Commission to ensure, when monitoring the ways that the funding is used, that Turkey is not merely pretending to wipe out or combat more minor forms of discrimination without making any effort at all to fight that basic discrimination which, when all is said and done, is at the root of a great many of Europe's misfortunes.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, I also congratulate the Commission and the Council on the quality of their joint report, and especially the rapporteur on his own powerful report on this key issue. I trust that Member States in particular will take note that the problem of adequate and sustainable pensions is a problem today, will be an even bigger problem tomorrow, and requires action now. I particularly commend the rapporteur on the way he has worked hard to absorb amendments from colleagues from different parties, who also care strongly about this issue. Indeed I am grateful that he has seen fit to accept five of mine: on defining the objective; to provide adequate and fair incomes to older people and prevent poverty in old age; on defining the gravity of the problem; on the importance of promoting pension portability; and, in particular, on the disgrace that certain EU institutions continue to discriminate against allowing older workers to apply for jobs - a point I have raised on several occasions with Commissioner Kinnock with, I regret to say, only bluster in response. Because the rapporteur has accepted so much it would probably be churlish of me to lament his non-acceptance of my amendment declaring that secure, inflation-proof pensions for public sector workers, such as Members of this Parliament, are seen as increasingly unfair by those in company schemes that depend on stock market performance in the real world. I believe we should show that we recognise this. It is, after all, the reality. Having said that, his report recognises much that is a problem. It also seeks to focus attention on what needs to be done. In the next 50 years the number of over-65s will double from 25% to perhaps 50% of the population. In rural areas, including large parts of my own constituency of the West Midlands, the percentage could be higher still. His report deserves support from across this House. He certainly has mine.

Political group: PPE-DE
In good time, the Commission has submitted its communication on ‘Wider Europe’ and clarified how it might shape its relations with its ‘New Neighbours’ following enlargement in 2004. It is regrettable that the region of the Southern Caucasus is not included in it, even though we will have immediate external borders with it when Romania accedes to membership. It is not only from televised images of the post-election demonstrations in Georgia or the confusion in Azerbaijan, also following elections, that we know how explosive the situation in these countries is. When, too, the European Commission constantly stresses that Europe has more of a presence in these countries, is exerting greater influence and providing more financial support than is generally known, it is all the more surprising that this region is not even mentioned once in such an important document on the European Union’s future relations with its eastern neighbours. I am, then, all the more grateful to the rapporteur, Mrs Napoletano, and to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, for remedying these defects and, in their excellent report, making explicit reference to the Southern Caucasus region. I very much hope that the Commission will take Parliament’s demands seriously. - Queiró report (A5-0370/2003)

Political group: PPE-DE
Madam President, I too wish to add to the protests voiced by Mrs Villiers and Mr Alyssandrakis at the premeditated abduction of a Cypriot citizen. Not only is this man ill, but a bag of hashish was planted next to him so that he could be accused of drug smuggling, even though the abduction was carried out on a base belonging to Britain – a guarantor power and a member of the European Union. We need to act fast because I am afraid that, now that Turkey has been accepted as a candidate country of the European Union, it thinks it can act with impunity in these matters. It has already advanced to positions at two points on the border with the buffer zone in Cyprus, in violation of UN arrangements, and the protests emanating from the UN and from us and from the members of ΝΑΤΟ are so ineffectual that it pays no attention to them whatsoever. Moreover, Mr Denktash, the leader of 'North Cyprus' which, I would remind the House, is under Turkish occupation, has refused to take part in further talks on the Cyprus problem because he feels he is in a much stronger position than before, now that the European Union – without, I believe, a great deal of forethought – has accepted Turkey's candidature for membership of the European Union.

Political group: PPE-DE
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we are discussing the Budget and the strategy for 2004. As has been said, 2004 will be the year of the European Union's enlargement, but it must also be a year in which, at last, the European Union's foreign and security policy is developed further. So the crucial question is what democratic control there will be when we get a common defence policy. In this area, democratic control is exercised primarily by way of the Budget procedure. If we are to have to handle issues of war and peace in the same way as issues of foreign and security policy, such democratic control is even more important than in other areas. It is in view of the Convention that we need to make certain demands now, demands that will be significant in 2004. For a start, we have to ensure that the military element of operational expenditure on peacekeeping and crisis management has a fixed place in the European Union's regular Budget and that we in Parliament get full powers of codecision. Secondly, President Prodi, you said that joint actions were being undertaken in the European Union in the area of research and development, and in the purchase of armaments. We know that the Convention is talking in terms of an armaments agency, and we must do all in our power to ensure that these Budget lines do not disappear into a shadow budget somewhere, a budget over which neither the European Parliament nor the twenty-five national parliaments will have any control, but rather that these items of expenditure are reflected in the regular Budget of the European Union.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, Commissioner Fischler, my group would like to thank you for all the efforts that you have made in these negotiations, even more so when we think that what was lacking was not a fishery negotiation strategy, but an overall strategy. In 1995 my group maintained that the fisheries agreement with Morocco should be included as part of the text of the European association agreement with Morocco. The reason was obvious: between partners facilities need to be established in both directions. Morocco needs access to the Community market, and the Community fisheries sector needs access to fishing grounds that it has traditionally worked in. Morocco’s reasons cannot be found in preservation of resources. Due to a lack of time, I am not going to give examples. The association agreement took an unambiguous stand on Community concessions to Morocco and today we find ourselves without a fisheries agreement. The consequences of the lack of an agreement are the loss of 4 000 direct jobs and 20 000 on land. There may be a solution in seeking other fishing grounds for part of the fleet, but it is very difficult for the small-scale and inshore fleets. If Morocco is intending to act as a partner, it should open up its waters to the Community small-scale fleet immediately. Commissioner, among your measures, you yourself talked about increasing the European Union’s room for manoeuvre. Soon the association agreement will have to be revised and Morocco will surely once again make demands for trade concessions that will even affect the same Community regions that are currently being seriously affected by the lack of a fisheries agreement. Commissioner, I hope that the European Union finds this room for manoeuvre when the time comes to revise the association agreement.

Political group: GUE-NGL