GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the weapons have been collected, so it is claimed. The NLA has been dissolved, so it claims. We all know that there are still a great many weapons in Macedonia, and the issue of a criminal association is still on the agenda. It includes those who want it. I still assume that most Albanians want it. I also assume that most Macedonians want it. However, the problem in many Slav Macedonian heads has not yet been resolved – otherwise, we would never have had the problem in the first place. In recent years, nothing was done to enable the Albanian minority – a substantial 28 percent of the population – to participate genuinely as citizens on an equal footing. If this issue had been addressed seven or eight years ago, instead of just two years ago, and if progressive measures had been taken to make all citizens equal, the rebels would not have had such an easy ride, in my view. It is a pity – also for the Macedonian people – that it now looks as if there is only a response when criminal elements appear to be overrunning the country. It is a pity, but it is the fault of all the political parties on the ground. Ultimately, we have now achieved what this House has always asked for. As Mr Swoboda has said, I would also like to remind you that we do not want a divided country. Macedonia is a state. It should continue to be a state, and it should not be divided along ethnic or national lines. Anyone who considers this option puts the entire region at risk. That is something which is extremely dangerous. I very much hope that this new Parliament will also now try to implement the laws as quickly as possible. The problem is that we are now hearing that what they have already voted for is being called into question again, and that sessions of parliament are constantly being postponed. Obviously, there are reasons for this. In Tetovo, for example, repeated attacks are being carried out on the Macedonian police. We must ask ourselves why this is happening. We must therefore be very diplomatic but firm with all our colleagues in Macedonia and ask them to make genuine efforts to progress with the Ohrid Agreement. We must not allow any recourse to this dreadful idea of holding a referendum in order to put off these constitutional changes indefinitely. That must not happen. Hannes Swoboda, Joost Lagendijk and I will try to bring influence to bear on our Macedonian colleagues over the next two days. I also think it is very important for an amnesty to be granted in whichever way is appropriate under the laws of the country, but this should not apply to crimes to be investigated in The Hague. I think we should make a fine distinction here. Naturally, I very much hope that the parliament will now put in place the laws necessary to strengthen local autonomy and give the minorities – which, after all, are majorities in some regions of the country – the opportunity to take genuine responsibility for their fellow citizens. I think that if they pursue this course, as Johannes has said, we will have peaceful situations by the end of this year.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it was a great pleasure for me to hear yesterday’s speech by the new President-in-Office of the Council, Jacques Chirac, in which he told us that we should pay more heed to the precautionary principle in environmental matters than we have until now. I do not know if Mr Chirac was familiar with the detail of this report, but in any case he gave us a very clear pointer on how to vote tomorrow. All phthalates should be banned from plastic toys, not just six. After all, the Scientific Committee on Toxicity, Ecotoxicity and the Environment expressed certain reservations about the most commonly used phthalate, and had serious concerns about another. If we are to take our work at all seriously, then we should invoke the precautionary principle and ban the use of all phthalates as plasticisers. Several of the 15 Member States – and there are 15 of us, not 14, Mr President – have applied this European precautionary principle concept, and that includes my own country, Austria. We brought in a ban on all plasticisers in the phthalate group in an order published in Federal Law Gazette II No 225 in 1998. I can only recommend this to the other Member States. And I do not mean that in a bilateral sense, but in the framework of the Community of Fifteen. Let me make a second comment. If we were only to ban things when we had absolute scientific proof, then, my goodness, how ashamed we should all be now. How could we allow these six phthalates to be used as plasticisers in PVC without having scientific proof at that time that they were harmless? When our children’s health was at stake, we did not cry out for scientific proof. Let us try tomorrow to rectify our past mistakes.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, Mr Berlusconi, at the opening of the Intergovernmental Conference, you amused your colleagues with a joke about how you might make the people happy. The punchline is that someone advises you to throw yourself out of a helicopter. We are very glad that you did not do so, but we are not amused by the way you threw out the European Constitution instead. There are three kinds of failure: you can lose to your opponents, you can fail to achieve goals that are set too high, and you can be your own downfall. The Intergovernmental Conference brought itself down. Nobody was against it. You had the Convention behind you, with an overwhelming consensus of the larger Member States and the smaller ones, the old ones and the new, of parliaments and governments. Only in your own ranks did you have opponents. Did you fail because you were aiming too high? No, for, apart from the Convention proposals, there was no controversy; even with your 300 amendments, you went nowhere near as far as what the Convention had proposed, and not even as far as the Treaties of Nice. You were the cause of your own failure. Having been called upon to take responsibility for Europe, you fought for national egoisms; having been called upon to create a balance between the institutions and a European democracy, you tried to build on your own power advantage, and to waste no time in gaining advantages for the national governments. You had the chance to defend the Convention’s consensus – which was the greatest that could have been achieved – but instead you lost it. There is, I believe, one hope left to us. You, Mr President-in-Office, have tried; the governments have tried – and they have failed. After the partial failure of Amsterdam and the total failure of Nice, they have now, finally, failed. All that we can now do is to appeal to the governments’ sense of reason in persuading them to accept the Convention draft, Europe’s highest common denominator, after all. (Applause)

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, I am, of course, making this request on behalf of my Group.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, first of all, I would like to apologise on behalf of Mrs Maij-Weggen, who submitted this resolution. She has had to leave earlier on account of a death and funeral in the family. It is not the first time in this House that the CITES Convention is being mentioned. Over the years, this Convention, with its 148 signatories, has saved many plants and animals threatened with extinction. This often followed robust campaigning on the part of the environmental and animal-protection lobby, campaigns which were adopted many times over by the European Parliament, the national parliaments and also, for example, by the American Congress. Once again, it seems unlikely that the correct decisions will be taken at the CITES meeting in Nairobi and once again, we will be stepping in to prevent the wrong decisions from being taken. In this intervention, I would like to focus on three risks. The first risk concerns the fact that a number of southern African countries have proposed moving the African elephant from appendix I to appendix II, which means that the controlled hunt will be allowed. Together, these countries would like to harvest more than 50 tonnes of ivory. We urge the Commission and Member States not to go along with this. The list of illegally traced ivory is already so extensive that a legal hunt would only exacerbate the problem. In the light of the fact that over a twenty-year period, the entire population of the African elephant has plummeted from 1.3 million to 625 000, we have now reached a critical level, as is widely known. A second risk which I would like to point out is Norway’s and Japan’s proposal to re-legalise the hunt for the minke whale in the North Atlantic and the Southern Pacific. Again we are opposed to this, if only because these lovely animals are already being hunted down by both countries. Re-legalisation would only further reward bad behaviour. In addition, this minke whale is an endangered species and it would be preferable to keep to the arrangement to protect all whales. Finally, I would like to give a third example. Cuba has requested to move the hawksbill turtle back to appendix II. This is the result of a typically isolated view of an animal generally threatened with extinction. As this species mainly lays its eggs in Cuba, people think that there are plenty of them and would like to kill 500 of these tortoises per annum, only to serve them up at exclusive restaurants, with the shells being sold off to Japan. This would be a tremendous incentive to continuing the illegal hunt. Cuba should be ashamed of itself, making this proposal, and what is more, their own proposal does not even meet the ideology adopted by Cuba itself, to which, incidentally, I do not subscribe either. In a nutshell, these are three examples from a series of proposals in Nairobi which cause us great concern. We urge the Commission and Member States not to support this type of proposal but to keep CITES as it is. Let us not start this century on a bad note but on a good note and work together to ensure that no more plants and animals are threatened with extinction.

Political group: PPE-DE
When it signs the Euro-Mediterranean Agreement with Egypt, the Council must emphasise the need to protect Community nationals who fall victim to the lack of freedom in this country. In particular, the Council needs to intervene in the case of the remaining survivor of the three Greek seamen sentenced for drug smuggling about ten years ago. Although only young, two of them have already died in the intolerable conditions which prevail in Egyptian jails. The Council should intervene to save the life of the last surviving Greek seaman in jail in Egypt, who should be allowed to serve out his sentence in a Greek jail. This human rights issue has quite rightly caused concern in Greece and, with this in mind, I abstained from voting for the Martin Hugues motion.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, I shall speak with a voice that has not been much heard in this debate so far, despite the two words in Mr Barnier's speech about regional parliaments. It must be remembered that Europe is not just a Europe of central institutions and Member States. Within the Member States there are self-governing countries – called, in the parlance of this House, 'regions'. Many of their citizens regard themselves as citizens of ancient European nations deserving as much recognition in this Union as others. Mr Poettering rightly said that the Community method is a good one from the point of view of small states. Let it also be a good method for small countries that are not, or not yet, Member States of this Union in their own right. If, in the debate over the next three years, the voices of the democratically-elected parliaments of the countries and regions of Europe within the Member States are not heard properly and taken as fully into account as the voices of the Member States themselves, the 'national' parliaments and – as Mrs Frassoni rightly said – the NGOs, then the debate will have been a failure. Subsidiarity is a two-ended concept. At one end it requires that decisions be taken as close to the people affected as is consistent with efficiency and equity. But that implies that many decisions can only be taken at the other end, at the higher level, when, for the sake of equity and efficiency, the whole of a great polity must be included. That great polity will not do well, however, unless it avoids taking power from the little people, the more local levels of government. The 'regions' of Europe must be properly represented in this discussion and proper attention must be paid to subsidiarity.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Thank you very much for that full, helpful and informative reply. I should like to add my congratulations to the Irish for the leadership they are showing on this difficult question. I attended the conference on organised crime in Dublin before Christmas, it was excellent and the Irish showed great leadership. I congratulate you very much on the initiative you are showing. Is there a chain of command for these liaison officers from the EU who are going to be posted in Albania? Who do they report to? Do they each report to their own national capital? Do they report to Europol in The Hague? Is there somebody in charge? How is it organised? The great problem here with policing – as you must know even better than I – is that individual nationalities and forces are reluctant to cooperate. They each try to keep the information they have to themselves. What we need is much more coordination and cooperation, even between EU police forces. Can you give me any assurance that this is happening? Who is in charge? Who liaises with whom?

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, in the past, the European Union has, in matters relating to Chechnya, addressed most of its appeals for a peaceful resolution of the conflict to Russia rather than to both sides. It was only when the USA became the victim of targeted terror attacks, which Europe also feared, that we began to take a more nuanced view of the situation. Such a realistic approach is to be welcomed, and the summit with Russia should reinforce it. It seems to me, Commissioner, that the European Union will not always be able to exclude the issue of the CIS from the debate it wants on the European Common Area, but will have to face up to it. Even if one takes a critical view of the possibilities open to it in political dialogue on the resolution of the conflict with and within Russia in relation to Chechnya, the EU does have options, and we should make use of them primarily in order to provide effective aid for humanitarian purposes and for reconstruction, so that the hard-pressed people of Chechnya can get real help.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, although it would have been better if we had voted at lunchtime, I am happy to go ahead now.

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, it is high time that forces were joined to help the developing countries to greater prosperity. The best way of doing this is generalised free trade, which offers the best guarantees for sustainable economic growth in all parts of the world. It is certainly the case that the liberalisation of trade is the key to development, but it also needs an important nuance. I argue for the free market, not the unbridled or unlimited free market. The free market does not actually exist any more. Today we talk of a socially corrected market with attention to social standards, the environment, consumer protection, respect for intellectual rights, etc. These constraints must be a permanent factor in the inclusion of less developed countries in the world trade system. In the next WTO round, we from Europe must certainly see the developing countries as our partners rather than as our opponents. I do not share the view of the rapporteur, Mrs Morgantini when she says that there is no evidence of liberalisation stimulating the growth of prosperity. Globalisation offers benefits to all countries that engage in the world economy. Similar countries that have pursued a different trade strategy demonstrate marked differences in the area of per capita income. I am thinking for example of South Korea compared with North Korea, of East Germany compared with West Germany before unification. I am thinking of the Asian tigers compared with the Southern Asian countries. Or even more blatantly, about 20 years ago China and Africa were at the same level of development. Since China has resolutely pursued the path of an open economy and has engaged in the world trade system, the results have been spectacular. On average, the Chinese today earn three times as much as the Africans. The difference is enormous not just where income levels, but also knowledge levels are concerned. The rich may well have grown richer as a result of globalisation, but any question of the poor growing poorer is manifestly untrue. UN figures prove it. The proportion of the world’s population living in extreme poverty has fallen in 10 years from 29% to 23%. At the end of the nineties, there were 826 million people undernourished, or 40 million fewer than in the early nineties, despite the population explosion. The infant mortality rate fell worldwide from 64 per 1 000 in 1980 to 56 per 1 000 in the nineties. Around 80% of people in the developing countries have access to good water supplies, and illiteracy has fallen to 20%. That is not perfect, but things are moving in the right direction. There is still much to be done, but there is also hope. Proper globalisation is the way ... (The President cut off the speaker)

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, I had not actually intended to speak, but I do of course have something to say whenever the others have something to say. (Laughter) I would like first to say a few words of thanks to you for the way you dealt with this issue. As Mr Lehne said, a majority of our group was in favour of legal proceedings, but there were other opinions, such as that of the esteemed Mr Karl von Wogau. I liked, however, the way you dealt with the issue politically, telephoning the President-in-Office of the Council, the Spanish Prime Minister José María Aznar, and, of course, keeping in touch with the President of the Commission, Romano Prodi. We, of course, have confidence in the Spanish Prime Minister; not only in that role do we trust that he will keep his word and that words will be matched by deeds, but also in his role as President-in-Office of the Council. I also have something to say to the Commission. So, Commissioner, please tell the President of the Commission, Romano Prodi, that, tomorrow, when we deal with Mr von Wogau's report, with financial services and with everything we associate with ‘Lamfalussy’, we expect the Commission to take up a position in defence of Parliament's rights vis-à-vis the Council of Ministers. That is what we expect tomorrow. If such a statement is not forthcoming, it will have serious consequences for our relations with the Commission, and so, Mr President, your action will no doubt help the President with his statement tomorrow. Again, let me extend my express thanks to you for the way you have handled this matter politically. (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE
The Belgian members of the Group have abstained from the final vote on the European arrest warrant. They support the efforts by the European Parliament to help develop the legislative framework in the fight against terrorism. The European arrest warrant is a useful instrument, but the Belgian members of the Group oppose the generally applicable European arrest warrant for crimes which incur a sentence of more than one year. They are in favour of the Council’s approach with a positive list on the basis of the Europol mandate. – Gebhardt report (A5-0398/2001)

Political group: PSE
Mr President, I salute the rapporteurs, who have done a very good job: skilled, knowledgeable and well thought through. I am very pleased that primary production has been included and that we now finally cover the whole of the food chain. I am also very pleased that individual producer liability has been specified again in the food legislation. We shall not get anywhere merely with ‘policing’ power if people themselves do not take responsibility for their companies, work and own actions. I personally am incredibly pleased about Mr Schnellhardt’s willingness to compromise, so that we now have Article 4.4 (Amendment No 31) through which Europe’s endlessly rich and varied stock of traditional food can remain on the market without individual Member States thereby being given the opportunity to ignore the regulations and label all their products as traditional. By means of this wording, we have also ensured that we are not concerned here only with small-scale production. Some of Europe’s most important food exports in fact consist of traditional cheeses and hams and so on which require special production methods without, however, being hazardous as a result. I am very pleased that we have got this section through, for it would have been terrible if we had obtained food legislation in Europe which only suited Nestlé and McDonald's. Finally, I want to point out that I too am very pleased that we have arrived at sensible and sustainable compromises where hunting is concerned. I live in the middle of the forest in Sweden and should scarcely dare come home at all if some elk hunter had got the idea that I had banned elk hunting. That is an extremely emotive issue, and I think we have arrived at a good compromise which both pheasant and elk hunters will be able to live with.

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, the rapporteur deserves thanks and some sympathy for handling this difficult report. It is almost impossible to reconcile the conflicting commercial interests and the dispute with the WTO, but the rapporteur and the committee Chairman have worked hard to produce a report which provides the Commission and the Council with a more realistic negotiating brief. I hope that the Commission will respond positively to the amendments, not with the blanket negative view of the last debate, and will acknowledge that each amendment represents legitimate concerns. There are already indications that the Commission's first-come-first-served proposals are easing the negotiating process and that past trading volumes may yet be an element in the final outcome. The dispute with the WTO has resulted in retaliatory trade sanctions and it is not easy to explain this to the exporters in Member States who are affected in quite arbitrary and unrelated sectors. Our objective must be to achieve a revised banana regime that will be accepted at the WTO and reflect the EU commitment to the ACP and the most vulnerable suppliers in the Caribbean. Successive WTO rulings do not say that we cannot give preferential treatment to our traditional suppliers. The trick is how. The Commission must demonstrate that their needs will be addressed. It is not comfortable to accept the growth of trade liberalisation and a ‘tariff only’ system in the future, as the Commission has concluded, but it must be faced. The higher the tariff that can be negotiated, the less we will need other measures to help the ACP and the Caribbean. I believe that speeding up the negotiations gives the best guarantee of an acceptable tariff level, and for this reason, above all others, I call for full support for this report.

Political group: PSE