GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Madam President, Prime Minister, I too would like to welcome the Prime Minister here. It is not quite the same as at home in the Swedish Parliament, but you get used to it fairly quickly. Many issues revolve around the three Es. Allow me to highlight a fourth one, namely E for Empathy. We were all deeply shocked after the Christmas celebrations by the image of people struggling for their lives off the coast of Turkey in their attempt to get to Europe. Many people died in their fight for a better life. I know that you, Prime Minister, expressed your dismay after the awful tragedy last year when 58 Chinese people were found dead in a container in Dover. Europe must not be transformed into some kind of fortress. The European asylum and refugee policy must be characterised by dignity and humanity – that was your message at the time. But what has happened since? Well, the development in Europe has taken a wrong turn. It has been proposed that the penalties for trafficking in human beings be made more severe. This is necessary, but the proposals are unfocused in their effect. Non-profit-making organisations – churches, religious orders, asylum organisations and private networks which support asylum seekers – are threatened with penalties. These proposals must be stopped. In Sweden, protection against the violation of the sanctity of churches has prevailed since the Middle Ages. European leaders should reflect on why trafficking in human beings to Europe is dramatically increasing. Europe is being closed. To impose a visa requirement on 130 countries is not worthy of a democratic Europe. The basic rule must be that people have the right to travel freely to the EU. Is the Swedish Presidency prepared to work towards making the list of countries from which visas are required considerably shorter? I am an ardent supporter of the EU and have for a long time now wanted to see common rules within the asylum and refugee policy, but we Liberals are not prepared to accept any kind of ‘cordoned-off’ Europe. This, Prime Minister, is an opportunity for the new presidency to make an important contribution towards humanity and human dignity in the spirit of Raoul Wallenberg, whose memory you have so commendably honoured. Empathy is the key word. IN THE CHAIR: MR DAVID MARTINVice-President

Political group: ELDR
Madam President, if I am not mistaken, Parliament and the Commission agree on the essential points: trade barriers need to be dismantled, integration needs to be fostered, Europe needs to speak with one voice in the IMF, and so on. I do not wish to repeat it all. I should just like to make two short comments and refer to Mr Patten's final remarks. Firstly, I have been working on Latin America for many years and – to my horror, I have to say – I have observed that Latin America's importance on the world stage is diminishing further every year, while Asia's is growing. There must be reasons for this, reasons that are far more complex than just a measure or two. We should discuss this openly. The second comment that I wanted to make concerns a survey that was carried out recently in Latin America. Part of the population – around 20 000 people – were asked whether they believed that authoritarian governments were better able to solve the problems than democracies. In 1996 in a similar survey only a minority put an authoritarian regime first; the majority was in favour of democracy. Today over 50% of the population are saying: yes, we need authoritarian governments to solve our problems. This means that the crisis that we are facing today in Latin America, and in particular in Mercosur, also presents a risk to democracy. This reminds me of the eighties and early nineties when our debates on Latin America mainly concerned democracy. At that time we understood that we needed to pursue a social and economic policy that restored people's faith in democracy. That is why I do not think that it is pointless for us to concern ourselves with Latin America; if we do not then we will only end up drafting more motions on dictatorships. (Applause)

Political group: PSE
Mr President, Guantanamo is not war, but a return to tyranny by a sovereign ruler, as now symbolised by the logic of a permanent state of emergency championed by the world’s only hegemonic superpower. The pressure being put on the principle of the rule of law this way may gradually crush the whole legal tradition we have had so much difficulty achieving. This is a historic challenge. Fortunately, regarding the cases of Mounir El-Motassadeq and Abdelghani Mzoud, the courts in both the United States of America and just recently in Germany have stood up for the most fundamental human rights principles of all, one of which is the right to a fair trial. This illegal confinement is not in America’s interests, but only makes the legitimate fight against terrorism more difficult. That can only succeed through cooperation and lawful courses of action, and it is actually giving into terrorism to ignore them. It is a dangerous signal in every respect.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, I will not bash America because the whole set of international trading regulations on medicines is in a mess. Unfortunately, once drug companies – even with the best intention to alleviate suffering – allowed their products and intellectual property rights to be semi-confiscated under the guise of becoming available on affordable terms in developing countries, it was inevitable that all sorts of complications would arise. These include definitions of what constitutes a measure to protect public health and is, therefore, subject to the compulsory licensing requirements allowed under TRIPS. Initially, the communicable diseases of HIV-AIDS, malaria and TB were included, but now there are plans to extend this list if the WHO thinks it appropriate. As these countries become more developed, more western diseases will become endemic, and a case will be made to extend the categories even further. Also, as more migrants come to Europe, diseases such as the three above will become more common. This will create markets for these drugs and lead to enormous market-driven pressures for parallel re-importation by unscrupulous middlemen from LDCs, which produce them cheaply as generics. This will undercut the profits of legitimate pharmaceutical industries. It also appears that the exemptions discriminate against smaller countries which lack the manufacturing base to produce the required life-saving drugs under compulsory licences. How much simpler it would have been if we had been more robust in defending the rights of drug companies to maintain their patent rights all over the world and then negotiated some differences in pricing, according to what the markets could actually bear and, at the same time, insisted that the burden of the drugs bill be picked up by and large by aid packages rather than by raiding the shareholder capital of the major pharmaceuticals. If there are to be reduced profits for the pharmaceuticals, my country, the UK, will suffer disproportionately, as it is a major employer and export-earner, and many of our pension funds are heavily invested in this sector. After all, many developing countries - even if the drugs were free - do not have the infrastructures to administer the treatments. Besides, profits are essential to fund further innovative research and development in the future, even into orphan drugs for rare tropical illnesses, which are of little interest in the West at present. At the very least, I call for a three-yearly review in future to see how this TRIPS agreement works out in practice.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to put four questions to this Chamber. Let me start with a photograph that I have seen in the German press, and in the French press as well; it shows the American defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld in Baghdad, shaking hands with Saddam Hussein in a friendly way. The photograph was taken at a time when Mr Rumsfeld was President Reagan's special envoy for relations with the Middle East. Might it be the case that, at that time, Mr Rumsfeld discussed the supply of armaments? (Interruptions) Let me put another question. Why will the American administration provide evidence only after 5 February? If there were evidence that Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction, the United States of America would be under an obligation to produce such evidence at once and supply it to the weapons inspectors. Why only from 5 February onwards? My third question is this. Mrs Stenzel said that the measures needed to deal with North Korea were different from those that are appropriate to Iraq. So let her tell us what they are! Here is one state, North Korea, which announces that it is building atomic weapons. So the United States of America says, ‘We shall negotiate with you.’ Another state apparently possesses weapons of mass destruction, and the response of the United States is to say, ‘We are not negotiating with them; we shall declare war.’ Where is the logic in that, if that is not purely arbitrary? Let me put my last question. Might it not be that the coalition against terrorism, so laboriously forged in the aftermath of 11 September, might be destroyed by a warlike act that had not been thought through beforehand? Might there not be heads of Muslim states, prepared to work together with the Western community of states, but who would not be able to remain in the anti-terror coalition if there were hostilities in Iraq? And might it not be the case that what is advocated by Mrs Stenzel and others – and obviously you, Mr Morillon, as well – might become the greatest campaign for recruiting terrorists that we have seen in recent years? If you can answer all these questions in the negative, then you can count yourselves lucky. I fear that you will have to answer them with ‘yes’, and that is why my government is right to say that what this region needs is more peace, rather than war, of which it has already had enough. (Applause)

Political group: PSE
Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, I appreciated Prime Minister Verhofstadt’s call in his speech to make Europe not just a Europe of red tape but, first and foremost, a Europe of citizens. However, it is not enough, ladies and gentlemen, to tell the Europeans that they are European citizens. We need to make them feel like European citizens. The euro is certainly an important step – and I agree with the line taken by President Prodi – but it is not enough. Without substantial political support, the euro is likely to encounter difficulties, as it has in recent months, in relation to the dollar and other currencies. This is why we cannot disregard the outcome of the Irish vote but must give it our utmost attention. This is why we must involve the European citizens in a convincing rediscovery of our common cultural, historical and political identity through an incisive policy linked to the principle of subsidiarity. Therefore, what can be decided at a lower level – and here I agree with Prime Minister Verhofstadt – must be. The European Union must not concern itself with too many things but must lay down the guidelines, the policy lines for genuine involvement of the people and parliaments in the process of unification and enlargement. The Convention preparing the forthcoming IGC must therefore directly involve the representatives of the people, that is the representatives of this and the national parliaments. Involving the people too in the reform of the institutions will give this European Union an increasingly significant political – and I stress, political as well as economic – role. These, I feel, are the bases for achieving an enlargement which we strongly believe to be an irreversible, necessary step for the European Union: an enlargement in which my political grouping believes and which the government, which my political grouping supports in Italy, stressed both in its meeting with President Prodi and at the last Gothenburg meeting. However, if we really want to achieve permanent enlargement, it is vital that we involve the citizens and their representatives more and more.

Political group: PPE-DE
Madam President, it was with great pleasure that I voted for the Sörensen report. I fully approve the contents of the report, but, sadly, I feel that it fails to get to the root of the issue. The motion for a resolution states that 500 000 people, victims of trafficking in women, enter Europe every year. The true responsibility for trafficking in women lies with the men who take advantage of them in Europe – in the order of 180 million people, according to my calculations. The point I am trying to make in this explanation of vote can also be found on page 11, line 14 of the report, and it is the only line out of the 722 making up the report which reaches the crux of the matter: it states that we must fight for “information and awareness-raising activities with a view to reducing the demand side”. Out of the 7 213 words in this report, a mere handful are dedicated to the truth.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, I should like to praise the rapporteur most warmly for his excellent work, which is also very interesting from the point of view both of principles and of practice. He is trying to lift Parliament’s efforts above the level of positive testimonies. After all, if we speak our minds, then we will also need to do the follow-up. Too often, we do not take heed of our own criticism and we lack the tools to find out what has become of our indictments. We should finally do something about this follow-up, even though I fully understand the objections – some of them practical – that the Commissioner mentioned. This certainly applies to the support to which the winners of our Sakharov prize are entitled. After all, they are in many cases the heroes of civil liberties. This very week, timely support has once again been shown – and rightly so – to Aung San Suu Kyi, and so it is odd to notice that Mrs Leyla Zana is always receiving so little attention from us. Is it not so convenient politically speaking? If this is the reason, then the criticism levelled by the rapporteur at the Commission and the Council also applies to us. Upholding human rights is not all that simple. Defending people with whom you see eye to eye is not difficult. It is only when the rights of people with whom you do not agree are upheld, that campaigning for human rights becomes an issue. This also holds for freedom of conscience. To my surprise, some of my fellow-MEPs get along better with that concept than with freedom of religion. I find this a bit worrying, to be honest. I should, however, like to ask for attention to be given to my amendment on freedom of conscience, which I tabled immediately, of course. After all, very positive things can be mentioned in this area too. In the amendment, reference is made to the wide range of conscientious objections, with which we do, or do not, agree. After all, in the framework of respect for conscience, the latter is not at all interesting. I therefore hope for wide support from this House. In my view, the rapporteur has handled the topic of religious freedom in his articles very proficiently. It is all the sadder that plain prejudice on the part of the press has often led to only this 1% of the text that deals with violence in religion being given so much attention. I hope that the rapporteur will not give this too much of a hearing and simply continues unstintingly along the path that his report has mapped out. (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, I should not speak on this document because artists do not retire: like love, art never retires. Therefore, I should not speak about this document for I represent pensioners, but, Mrs Echerer, Mr President, many pensioners are also artists. At the end of their working life, many pensioners paint or create works of art, and so I want to protect the pensioners who are also artists. In the same way as there are pensioners who continue to be in love and to live out that love, there are also pensioners who are artists and create works of art. Therefore, like Mrs Echerer, I support this document.

Political group: PPE-DE
Madam President, Mrs Malliori’s report is mainly acceptable in itself. The main basis of the report is health grounds, but its general tone could be interpreted as permissive with respect to drugs. For that reason I would stress that we must tackle the drugs problem strictly and that in the EU we must achieve minimum norms in legislation as well as in the penalties we impose. The credibility of our fight against drugs is weakened by the fact that in the Member States the use of those other intoxicants, alcoholic drinks, is viewed permissively or even idealised. It does Mrs Malliori’s report credit that it should mention that problems with alcohol are on a par with drug problems. This is the way we should be going. The EU must agree to raise taxes on alcohol, hence reducing consumption and the harm it does. Social welfare and healthcare costs will then come down, so allowing us to cut other forms of taxation. The Member States must also be able to maintain a protection from imports system that would make possible a national, health-promoting policy on alcohol.

Political group: ELDR
draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs. – Mr President, I wish to begin by thanking Mrs Maij-Weggen for her comments. I have heartily enjoyed the way we have worked together on this and I am pleased to say that the work in her report represents our joint work. I also accept what she has said on the amendments. Before I speak further, I should like the services to rule whether Amendment No 17 from the Green Group is admissible, because it seeks to rewrite the regulation. It calls on Parliament to adopt criteria for the definition of sensitive information and documents. Now the definition of sensitive documents is contained in the regulation, Article 9, reference to Article 4(1)(a). I should again like to thank Mrs Maij-Weggen for her consistent approach to transparency and openness. It is absolutely right that we adopt changes to our Rules of Procedure so that we not only conform to the regulation on access to documents but can also begin to be held accountable by the citizens whom we purport to represent. Therefore, now that Commissioner Barnier is here, it is important for me to refer to some of my concerns about the entry into force of this regulation on 3 December 2001. When the regulation enters into force, the citizen's right of access to institution documents will no longer be a discretionary concession but a fundamental right, rooted in Article 255. As no other legal basis on access to documents is provided in the Treaty, the regulation on Article 255 will be the framework for all other secondary legislation and for the internal rules of the institutions, which should be in conformity with it. The Commission, therefore, has the responsibility to present formal proposals to repeal or amend secondary legislation which is not coherent with the principles and limits defined in Article 18(3) of the regulation. This is extremely important if we are to bring this regulation into force. Similarly, on the wider definition of institutions and the bodies and agencies, the Commission is mandated by Recital 8 and by the joint statement to review the rules of agencies and, where necessary to propose amendments as soon as possible. On the matter of the Interinstitutional Committee – and all of these points are relevant if we are ourselves adopting changes to the Rules of Procedure – the Council presidency has said that it believes the Interinstitutional Committee should operate at secretary-general level. This differs from the opinion of President Prodi and of Parliament. Though I hesitate to say this, it is nonsense to suggest that secretaries-general should sit in this Interinstitutional Committee. The whole point of political presence is political accountability. Finally, Mrs Maij-Weggen has done an excellent job on this and now is the time for the Commission to ensure that the Treaty is respected and that the regulations flowing therefrom are brought before Parliament.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, as I and many colleagues have argued for some time, the monetary union project is profoundly dangerous. It is economically naive and will do huge macroeconomic damage. Politically it is clearly intended to undermine the nation state, and thus it threatens democracy in Europe. The proposal before us talks of information on the euro, but we already have all the information we need. Every newspaper I open has stories about the euro. Banks and accountancy firms are running seminars and briefing clients. This is not about information, this is about propaganda. I do not trust the Commission to provide unbiased information. The very idea is absurd. I was particularly horrified by the idea of Mrs Randzio-Plath that we should actually enrol schoolchildren as the stormtroopers of this euro propaganda blitz. Now, if the 12 euro countries wish to undertake a propaganda campaign, that is no business of mine. But in three countries, Denmark, Sweden and Great Britain, the euro decision is not yet made. It would be a gross abuse of the democratic process for the Commission to undertake a euro propaganda campaign in those countries before referenda on the currency take place. It would be outrageous to take money from the taxpayer and to use it to influence the voters' decision. In Britain, 70% of people are opposed to joining the euro. We do not want our money spent on promoting it either in the UK or elsewhere. I therefore have two demands to make of the Commission. Firstly, please tell us today that no such campaign will be undertaken in Great Britain, Denmark or Sweden. Secondly, please assure us that the share of funding which might have been spent on those countries is returned to their national exchequers so that people can see clearly and transparently that their money has not been squandered on objectives they do not support. Better still, cancel the whole project and put all the funds into a special account to help defray the enormous costs that will be incurred when the euro is eventually dismantled.

Political group: PPE-DE
Thank you, Mr President. I should like to confine my speech to the European Patent. This is in line with what Commissioner Bolkestein and the majority of speakers here have said – although the President-in-Office of the Council did not mention it in his speech. We should give the Council a firm push and urge it to implement a European patent as quickly as possible. The problem that the Council faces, as we understand it, is the language regime, but this must not get in the way of a competitive economy, as the President-in-Office emphasised in his speech. When we take out a patent in the EU, we usually take it out in the USA as well, which means that we have to translate it into English, so why not decide once and for all that a patent taken out in the EU only needs to be issued in English? This would be simpler and would save enormous expense, and would be in keeping with the way inventors work. They say: I have an innovative idea, I can sell it worldwide, and therefore I have to translate it into English. All inventors speak English; and I wish, therefore, to be a strong advocate of our now having a European patent with one language, and one language only: English. It would increase competitiveness, and would be in keeping with the costs we have to incur in any case. It would seem to me that the Council should now make an effort and push this through.

Political group: PPE-DE