GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Mr President, I will be brief. I support this report and congratulate the rapporteur on her work. The Socialist Group welcomes the Commission reform of the Advisory Committee on Fisheries to create a more fruitful two-way dialogue between the Commission and the industry. We welcome the inclusion in the Advisory Committee of new sectors of the industry and the greater diversity of professional sectors involved, particularly those in aquaculture and marketing. We welcome the reduction in the number of members in the Plenary Committee in the interest of greater efficiency. We all know the danger of proliferating numbers at the expense of efficiency. The Commission seems to have taken that into account. We welcome the increased role of the research organisations and the establishment of the four working groups on: firstly, access to fisheries resources and their management; secondly, aquaculture, fish, molluscs and shellfish; thirdly, marketing and trade policy; fourthly, economic and structural sectoral analysis. We like the priority for Community-level organisations to try and avoid nationalising the debate, but we recognise that there need to be some national inputs at the appropriate levels. We will give this report our support, while promising to maintain a close watch to ensure that the structural changes that promise much actually deliver in practice; and that the new Advisory Committee on Fisheries and Aquaculture acts as an effective sounding board for all sectors and all sides of the industry.

Political group: PSE
I told him I would ask the President-in-Office of the Council, mentioning what he had told me, and that then I would give him the answer.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, Mr Verheugen and I are not, presumably, in much agreement, politically, about a lot of things, but I have to say that I have seldom heard so good and precise a description of the problems we are now to face. Nor have I heard so good and precise a description of our need to find a solution to our problems. I believe that the lack of popular involvement and the lack of commitment on the part of the political elite is one of the reasons why we now see more and more Member States choosing to introduce restrictions in relation to workers from the new Member States. That is something I deeply regret. I think it is the wrong signal to send to our new friends and colleagues from Eastern and Central Europe. I am tired of people typically proceeding on the basis of populism and of unreliable figures and information about the way things really are. I am also pleased that, in the course of enlargement, many forces have been deployed in monitoring the human rights situations in the candidate countries, and I think that this is one of those areas in which we cannot allow ourselves to relax, either now or after 1 May. We need constantly to monitor the situation. We know that there are problems for the Russian minority in Latvia. We know that the Roma have problems in many of the candidate countries, and we also know that they have problems too in the present Member States. My recommendation is that we do what we once did in the Council of Europe when that institution admitted quite a lot of new Member States, namely introduce permanent monitoring of democracy, human rights and minority rights, and not only in the new countries but in all the EU Member States. That is what we need to do, Mr President. It will be an important task to persist in monitoring these areas.

Political group: GUE-NGL
This package to increase safety at sea is a reaction to the accident with the Erika on 12 December 1999. Despite the fact that a plethora of Parliament's proposed amendments have been adopted, such as the exclusion of classification societies with some form of business, personal or family links to the shipowner or operator, greater transparency by requiring classification societies to ensure that all relevant information is made available to all interested parties on their websites, scrutiny of classification societies where the accident rate recorded by the ships classed is excessively high, the Council and Parliament still disagree on two very important points, which is why a conciliation procedure would appear to be in order if the recommendations before us, which we support, are accepted. Firstly: the European Parliament proposed that ceilings should be placed on the financial liability of classification societies in the event of an accident caused by wilful act, omission or gross negligence in their survey work. The Council was in favour of a regulation which allowed the Member States to set the maximum amounts payable, with the amounts set by Parliament here as minimum, not maximum amounts. Secondly: the Council has not accepted that there should be regular, mutual consultations between recognised organisations with a view to guaranteeing that their technical standards are equivalent to the provisions of IMO Resolution A.837 (29) and that the Commission should be provided with regular reports on fundamental progress made on these standards and their willingness to cooperate with port state control administrations. As my group is positive that a common standpoint can be found for both outstanding problems, we feel that a conciliation procedure would be in order. - van Dam report (A5-0151/2001) Fatuzzo (PPE-). – (IT) Mr President, as you can see, sometimes the Pensioners' Party gains fresh support from people as important as the Members of the European Parliament, even if only for explanations of vote on individual measures. I hope that Mr van Dam's report will receive just as much support. I voted for this report, which establishes a regulation on the safety of the carriage of goods by road and the safety of drivers who drive international heavy goods vehicles in Europe. The report also says that it is essential for the salaries and working conditions of drivers in Europe to be standardised, so as not to distort competition. However, that means that, in order to prevent distortion of competition, the rules governing pension contributions should also be standardised, and drivers' pensions should be standardised too. Therefore, what is stopping us from giving the European Union the competence to regulate the salaries and pensions of all Europeans?

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Atatürk legacy is double-edged and somewhat ambiguous. On the one hand there is the secular state, on the other the strong position of the Turkish army reflected in the power of the National Security Council, which implies military power over civilians. In a real democracy, this should actually be the other way round. How can the secular state in Turkey be maintained and democracy established? The army cannot be the ultimate guarantee for democracy, so far-reaching reforms are called for here. As is abundantly clear from the Oostlander report, the country is not yet a democracy as long as human rights are violated and as long as the rights of minorities are not absolutely guaranteed. Torture is a matter of daily practice. The position of the Kurdish language, the exclusion of the Kurds from political life, or at least the attempt to exclude them, is evidence of the fact that they do not want a political solution to this important conflict of nationalities. The threat of fundamentalism remains, although the AKP has adopted a reformist policy. We recognise that major progress has been made in legislation, such as the abolition of capital punishment, but far-reaching reforms have not yet been carried out. In paragraph 11 of the Oostlander report, it is suggested that serious work be done on constitutional matters. Needless to say, this cannot be a condition, but it is still worthwhile to suggest that a new constitution be put in place, one that makes room for human rights, but also for the autonomous Kurdish community, and one in which the position of minorities is safeguarded.

Political group: Verts-ALE
We voted against the Marinos report because it essentially supports the application of the Stability and Growth Pact, as the Commission has indeed just advocated in Commissioner Solbes's speech, which emphasised the importance of stability and of achieving a near-balanced or surplus budget outcome by 2004 at the latest. In various parts of the report what emerges most clearly is the reliance on neoliberal revenues which means that it is always the same people who bear the burden of budgetary and economic difficulties – the workers. Thus it advocates a moderate wage policy combined with respect for a 3% budget deficit limit and the 'the implementation of structural reforms in sectors of the economy, particularly in the products and capital markets, including the pension sector, as well as in the transport, energy, communication and labour markets'. In other words, more of the same! With regard to the situation in Portugal and Germany, the report criticises the failure to rigorously apply the Stability and Growth Pact, which is unacceptable and deeply inequitable, firstly because it is not comparing like with like, and secondly because it does not take into account socio-economic reality in Portugal, which has the highest rates of poverty in the European Union. What is needed, as we have advocated, is for the Stability and Growth Pact to be suspended, rather than the measures that the Portuguese government has just taken in its amending budget.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, following on from Mr Ribeiro e Castro’s speech, I too wish to alert the House to the cruel, and brutal trade in human organs that is taking place in northern Mozambique, near the town of Nampula. This cruel and brutal trade is unacceptable, must be condemned and must shock people into action. Mr President, the European Parliament must do something; it must protest – it must take action to ensure that this trade ceases and that this brutality is ended. I would ask you to write to the President of the Republic of Mozambique and to the President of that country’s National Assembly to express the concern of Members of the European Parliament at a truly appalling situation.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, I have to confess that I am rather concerned and astonished after hearing the Commissioner’s statements. We are on the eve of a war which we seem likely to wage on the basis of a mere suspicion: the suspicion that there may be chemical weapons. I am concerned and astonished at the ease with which our suspicions – the suspicion that depleted uranium might have been used in a number of conflicts and that it might have had serious effects on civilians’ health – are being dispelled. I will mention just three facts. Firstly, Nato has not banned depleted uranium weapons, and the fact that it has not banned them leads us to fear, to believe that they have been used, that they might even have been used more than once. Secondly, a statement by the US Secretary of State for Defence in January last year referred to an increase in radiation emissions from depleted uranium weapons in Afghanistan. Thirdly, a number of medical tests carried out – under very difficult conditions because of the situation – in Afghanistan by a Canadian NGO found depleted uranium levels a hundred times as high as usual, due – it is extremely likely – to the use of depleted uranium weapons. Now, in the light of all this, it would seem to be too easy, too hasty to claim that we do not have enough information to be able to presume to raise our voice and call for these weapons not to be used in any conflict and, in particular, to call for the danger of such weapons being used in Iraq to be avoided. This is the essence of our resolution but, tomorrow, it will be the responsibility of the Council and the Commission not just not to exclude the possibility of this danger being fully prevented once and for all but to demand it.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, in my view the emphasis at the Stockholm Summit lay on developing the internal market, in other words on economic liberalisation as stated earlier. The social issues, particularly the question of unemployment, were hardly touched upon. Göran Persson, it was the intention that the meeting was to focus on employment and employment policy. However, there are two different forms of employment policy. The first is about increasing provision on the labour market by increasing the labour force, i.e. increasing the employment rate. The second is about reducing the number of unemployed. These are two different areas of policy. In Stockholm you devoted yourselves to expanding the labour force by adding new groups to the labour market. This was to be achieved by reducing the number of women at home in Europe and by retaining the elderly on the labour market for a few more years. I have nothing against measures to increase the available workforce but no one can claim that they provide any direct benefit for the unemployed. In fact it is rather the reverse, such that the 14 – 15 million people who are unemployed face increasing competition for jobs by the addition of new groups at the same time as wage-related pressures increase. It would have been possible to combine both these areas of employment policy, within which the aim is both to increase overall employment and combat unemployment, by also proposing a reduction in normal working hours to 35 hours a week, or six hours a day. It has been claimed that a cut in working hours would not result in new jobs but this does not apply to low-paid jobs where there is a very clear link between reduced working hours and more jobs. Cutting working hours would also benefit all those who are already in work and make it easier for them to combine work and family life. I would like to see actual measures for the unemployed. It is not yet too late as the Swedish Presidency still has a few months left to run. I would like to see measures specifically focused on those who are unemployed and which help them here and now.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Minister, you know our party’s position on the accession of Cyprus to the European Union. If the free part of the island accedes, Cyprus will be partitioned. If the Annan plan is adopted, it will be partitioned through the back door. My question to you is this: If no agreement is reached on the Annan plan and the free part of the island accedes, part of the European Union will be under foreign occupation. What I want to know is how the Council will address the fact that part of the European Union is under foreign occupation, and whether you have any thoughts on how things will develop in the occupied part of the island.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, it is my privilege to speak again in a debate with Mrs Halonen. In fact, my first ever speech in this Chamber was back in July when I commended the Finnish Presidency on giving priority to information society and its work programme. Tonight, as we draw towards the close of that presidency, I want to commend the Finnish Presidency for working on this, but also to express some disappointment that it has not made more of the opportunities. Mrs Halonen only just managed to fit in a mention of information society – I think right in the last sentence of her speech – and yet, according to a paper that I received from the Commission last week, we are to have an e-Europe initiative presented at Helsinki, a paper entitled “Information Society for All”. So far, we have not seen that. “All” clearly still does not include Members of the European Parliament, so not many people know about it. Indeed it barely rated a mention in your speech, but I hope that the Council is going to spend some time on this vital topic. Could I also say on the broader topic of completing the internal market that, during the Finnish Presidency, we have had some very important strategy papers and they actually require a much higher priority than they are receiving in the Community at the moment. Indeed, the motion for a resolution I saw this morning contained no mention of any internal market or information society initiatives at all, despite the work that has been going on under your Presidency. I tabled an addendum in the name of my group this morning to include those items and I hope very much it will receive the support of this House. In conclusion, I also hope that the Finnish Presidency will remind Member governments at the Helsinki Council that creating a single market requires that cross-border takeovers and the restructuring of key industries must be allowed to proceed without political interference by Member governments. I am sure that Members of this House will know that there is a crucial takeover battle under way at the moment in the telecommunications sector. I have to say I am disappointed to see that some of the comments by senior politicians, and even Members of the Commission, suggest that the whole philosophy of an internal market has still to be fully accepted.

Political group: PPE-DE
Illegal, unregulated and unreported (IUU fishing) a highly destructive practice, a mode of fishing that damages the conservation and sustainable management of fish stocks. Tuna fishing is one of the types of fishing worst affected by these illegal practices. It should be added that Community fleets are among the largest exploiters of these stocks. In this context, the EU has played a leading role in combating this type of fishing, specifically by fighting against flags of convenience. These measures are, however, clearly proving to be inadequate. In Portugal, especially on the coast of the Algarve, we are extremely familiar with IUU fishing, but I will not repeat accusations that I have already made in this House. I do support this report, however, which in my opinion will both help to preserve fish stocks and to bring some calm to Community waters. I support this report because it urges Member States to make efforts to prevent their nationals from taking part in illegal fishing activities. I congratulate Mrs McKenna on this report which, when implemented, could effectively solve problems with which we are all familiar, even though we are finding it hard to combat them.

Political group: PPE-DE
After more than two years of prevarication, the Council finally adopted in October 1999 a common position on the directive relating to cocoa and chocolate products. As it stands, this text does not allow the interests of consumers, small-scale chocolate makers or cocoa producers to be protected. It also does not guarantee the quality of chocolate. Instead it allows the widespread use of vegetables fats other than cocoa butter, fails to provide precise information to the consumer and attaches little importance to the absence of a reliable method of analysing and measuring the fats present in chocolate. This proposal in no way responds to the concerns expressed by MEPs during the vote at first reading on 23 October 1998. This text opens the door to the industrial production of cocoa butter equivalents based on palm oil, the price of which is significantly lower than that of cocoa. Its adoption could lead to a dramatic fall in income for the eleven million people earning a living from cocoa in West Africa and for all the producing regions. To help us swallow this bitter pill, an attempt has been made to give the text a social aftertaste by claiming that it defends the interests of the poorest shea butter producing countries such as Mali or Burkina Faso. However, there is no guarantee that the chocolate industry will use shea nut oil which, in any case, can only replace 50% of the cocoa butter. This is a largely artificial conflict between cocoa producers and shea producers, between poor countries and even poorer countries. In reality, this proposed directive mainly reflects the position of the chocolate multinationals and defends only their interests with any certainty. I am therefore not happy about this. This is why I fully support the amendments which place greater importance on the concerns of small-scale chocolate makers, the interests of consumers and the future of millions of small-scale cocoa producers.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, any budget reflects the financial implementation of the intended policy. Consequently, the decision to accept or reject the budget can, of course, only be bound up with how the focal points of the policy match up to one’s own ideas and whether the available financial funds are sufficient. What then, in my opinion, are the main criteria for this budget? Firstly, a drastic minimisation of the unemployment which dominates in the Member States of the European Union. Secondly, a reduction in the economic and social divergences in the Member States. Thirdly, the enlargement of the European Union and, fourthly, a peaceful, democratic and social development of all regions in the world. If, and this I am assuming, you share these starting points, albeit there will certainly be differences of opinions as to the ways in which we reach these goals, it must be clear that the budget, as it stands, cannot be affirmed. Mrs Schreyer, I am, of course, in favour of reorganising and redistributing. I would immediately switch the focus from large enterprise to small and medium-sized economic policy which safeguards jobs. I would immediately move from an offer-oriented economic policy to a demand-oriented economic policy in order to boost consumption. But it is absurd to find ever more responsibilities for the European Union without providing it with the necessary financial funds. It cannot be the duty of Parliament to accept that the Council wants to finance important new political needs by renouncing traditional needs. Similarly, it cannot be the duty of this Parliament to accept that the Member States want to reorganise their budgets to the detriment of the European Union budget. Consequently, I consider that the most urgent task, given that we have a new Parliament and a new Commission, is to give consideration to the fact that the Financial Perspective really must be amended and that the interinstitutional agreement must also be modified.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Certainly, words like ‘new impetus’ declare the ambition of having closer relations. There is talk of a ‘Common Space’, but with no common construction. We are, indeed, a long way from such a space, listening to Mr Prodi talk about political rapprochement and progressive integration into the economic and social structures of the European Union. The question may be asked as to whether the word ‘neighbourhood’ has not replaced that of ‘partnership’. The EU’s objective is the integration, pure and simple, of these countries into the sizeable European market, but without any financial compensation in terms of the aid from which the candidate countries for accession benefited, even if the conditions were drastic and unjust. Another aspect is that the Commission’s entire communication is characterised by a very security-minded approach to relations. This is far from the hope of an EU open to the world. Freedom of movement for goods and capital, but not for people, is not only inhumane but also totally illusory and cynical. If the EU wishes to respond to the expectations that continue to be placed upon it by many peoples and to establish a notion of the world radically different from that of the United States, there is every reason for forging new links with our neighbours, particularly our Mediterranean ones.

Political group: GUE-NGL