GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the European Union's attitude towards the Iraqi Government is, unfortunately, moulded by the stance of that country's rulers, which amounts to blackmail. The policy of aggression pursued by Saddam Hussein and his accomplices has taken large numbers of their own people hostage. The insidious thing about this situation is the way that genuine human and economic distress, much of it artificially made worse, is exploited for political purposes. Generally, this hits the weakest members of society the hardest, but this should not lead us to confuse cause with effect. It is not the sanctions that cause the sufferings of the vast majority of the Iraqi people, but rather the aggression, cunning and incompetence of the totalitarian regime that provoked these sanctions. Every other approach and every attempt to dispel the facts from people's minds has to be firmly resisted. Every utterance focusing exclusively on the direct connection between the consequences of the embargo and the effects on the population falls dangerously short of the mark even when – indeed, especially when – it is well meant, for it thereby shifts and obscures the manifest political responsibility of Iraq's rulers. Anyone who talks about the ruination of the social and technical infrastructure, and about the lack of food and medicines whilst leaving the regime's responsibility out of consideration, passing over it or keeping quiet about it, is behaving naively or irresponsibly, to say the least. The right way ahead was shown by the UN Security Council at its meeting yesterday, when it resolved unanimously to step up the arms embargo and simultaneously to make it easier for Iraq to import goods for civilian use. This is further evidence of the broad agreement that exists between, on the one hand, the report before us and Parliament's resolutions to date, and, on the other, the resolutions of the Security Council and of the UN Commission on Human Rights. This consensus should be emphasised, deepened and built on rather than being tested to breaking point by assertions about the alleged failure of the embargo. Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne's report also picks up and deepens a proposal made as long ago as November 2000 concerning the setting up of a tribunal to punish the Iraqi regime's offences against human rights. I am convinced that trials of this sort can have a deterrent effect – if not on every dictator, then on many of their willing accomplices – and contribute to destabilising their regimes. I therefore unreservedly support the call for the establishment of an investigation authority to collect and assess witness statements and documentation and document evidence that will stand up in court. (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, allow me to start by saying that I have great admiration for the way in which the rapporteur, and also, most definitely, the shadow rapporteurs, have dealt with this very complicated matter which was ultimately resolved very quickly. There are, of course, minor points which require further attention, and I would mention monitoring as one of them. Who authorises this monitoring? But also, who will be organising, inspecting and running this food safety authority? This should not be sixteen, but twelve, for we need independence. What do we actually mean by food safety? We mean that in the internal market, we will ensure that we can guarantee food safety everywhere. That not only includes Europe’s fifteen Member States, but also all the candidate countries. I have a few concerns in this respect. Not because food in the acceding countries would not be safe, that is not what I am saying, but I am worried about the lack of good networks in the new Member States that could carry out inspections and instil consumer confidence. Last Thursday, there was a meeting involving experts from the acceding countries who alerted us to the lack of such a structure. That is one side of the coin. Inspection, also from the government, to ensure that the process runs smoothly. There is also a flip side, namely the lack of a civil society. That means a lack of well-trained consumer organisations that are independent and that could encourage the government at any time to pursue the policy effectively. The same also applies to product organisations. I wonder if the Commissioner would be willing to give us some information on that score, enabling us to see what we can do about this in future.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to begin by thanking the rapporteur, Mr Fiori, for his excellent work. I believe he has presented an outstanding report, and the political message is clear: we are saying yes to research, yes to the treatment of serious diseases, but human dignity is the overriding principle and can set limits even to research. This means, for example, that we reject the cloning of human beings at all stages of their development. The news from the USA that ACT has cloned a human embryo has probably shocked us all. People are right to be concerned. I think being against the cloning of human embryos is neither right wing nor conservative. Let me quote from a document produced by the French Communist Party. It says that allowing therapeutic cloning by nuclear transfer gives rise to many ethical problems. The first problem concerns the embryo. The second concerns the woman as egg cell donor and the risk of actually creating a market. The third problem concerns the precautions that must be taken with reproductive cloning. Even if the two objectives of cloning are different, there is clearly a great danger of opening the door to a kind of automatism when we do not at present have the means to control this area. There is nothing more to be said. So-called therapeutic cloning of embryos leads to reproductive cloning and that is why it must be banned. That is what the Fiori report says. I am shocked at the amendments tabled by the social democrats and others who want to delete this passage from the Fiori report. Neither are the arguments of those who want the deletion logical. In the Caudron report we decided that we did not want to encourage the cloning of embryos. I want to thank Commissioner Busquin because earlier this week the Commission again made quite clear that the Commission will not support this technology. But if we then fail to prohibit it, that is an invitation to firms like ACT to come to Europe if it is banned in the USA. I cannot imagine that the majority of Parliament wants that. I therefore ask you to support the Fiori report and reject the deletions.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, ideally GMOs should not be released into the environment. But if it is going to happen there have to be a number of measures taken to ensure that the industries that say this technology is safe take responsibility. That is why I cannot understand why the industry and the lobbyists are so concerned about the issue of liability. If they are so sure that their products are safe then why are they afraid to take responsibility, both as regards liability and compensation? The other issue I should like to address is the contamination of gene transfer. We have a situation where, for example, conventional farms can be contaminated with GMOs. That means there is no free choice, either for the farmers themselves – and that goes for organic farmers too – or for the consumers, in the long run. If you have contamination of conventional farms or organic farms, there is basically no free option for the consumer. This is not acceptable. At the end of the day, the GMO industry does not have anything to offer the consumer or the environment, even as regards the use of chemicals. It is ironic to think that the same industries that are promoting this so-called chemical-free agriculture are the very same ones that have bombarded us with chemicals over the years and are making those crops reliant on chemicals in the future as well.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, Mr Jarzembowski observes in his explanatory statement that we have to strengthen rail transport, to increase the efficiency and competitiveness of railways in order to reverse the downward trend of their share in the market in the last 15 years. He observes that little progress has been made by the Member States in implementing the separation of the rail service operations from those of infrastructure management and we do not see in most countries any effective opening-up of the rail market. In the United Kingdom considerable credit could well be paid to the former Conservative government for effecting just that, a policy which has been continued by the current Labour government. However, last October the Hatfield train crash took place in Hertfordshire, part of the eastern region which I represent in this Parliament. Four people lost their lives and many were seriously injured. The accident took place on a bend with the train travelling at 115 mph. It appears that the infrastructure authorities were aware of the fracturing of the rail as early as November 1999 and a further report was made in January of last year. No remedial action was taken. The British transport minister, Lord McDonald, has announced there will be no be no public inquiry. However, named members of Railtrack, the infrastructure company, and of Balfour Beatty possibly face manslaughter charges as a result of this accident. I turn to the Commissioner, who I am sure is aware of the details of this particular accident, which I would point out is not unique within the European Union, and I would hope that she would be able perhaps to dwell on the consequences of the crash. In the United Kingdom there has been chaos on our railways, there has been plummeting customer confidence in the rail system, remedial work has caused huge financial investment and Railtrack has threatened a delay in work on the Euro Channel Tunnel Phase II programme which is very much part of the integrated European rail system that we all support. I very much hope that the Commissioner may be able to give some support to the relevant authorities in the United Kingdom. This is not merely a domestic issue. It has European ramifications as far as the Channel Tunnel work is concerned. It may well be that additional support can be given through the TENs programme and I look forward to my discussions with the Commissioner on this extremely serious development.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, this week marks the second anniversary of the detention of approximately 660 people in Guantanamo Bay without charge or trial. Amnesty International has claimed that some of them are juveniles. This House has expressed its concerns quite recently about the continued detention of these people without charge or trial and has urged that they be given a fair and open hearing with the right to choose their own defence counsel. I ask you, Mr President, to make direct contact with the United States Congress to express the concerns of this Parliament and also to urge the President-in-Office of the Council to make contact with the authorities in the United States to express our concerns. If, in the struggle to defeat terrorism, we deny people civil and political rights then we are undermining our democracies. (Applause)

Political group: PSE
Mr President, the rapporteur, Mr Souchet, makes a number of accurate comments as regards the impact of the proposed amendments to Regulation 3448/93 laying down the trade arrangements applicable to certain goods resulting from the processing of agricultural products. If the proposed amendments are accepted and the inward processing arrangements are opened yet further, Community preference, which has already deteriorated, will no longer apply in practice and it will be more difficult to place processed Community agricultural products on international markets; small- and medium-sized units relying on Community agricultural produce and Community export refunds stand to lose and large processing units buying cheap raw materials from third countries stand to gain. The brunt of this adverse impact will be felt in the Mediterranean countries, including Greece, because these are the countries which produce these products and most processing units in these countries are small- or medium-sized. It would be an affront, having created such an unfortunate situation, if we were to accept the proposed amendments to the regulation, even on a provisional basis, i.e. until the WTO agreement is completed, on the pretext of safeguarding employment and the value added. That is why, despite the fact that we agree with many of the rapporteur’s findings, we disagree with his conclusion on the opening of inward processing arrangements, even on a provisional basis, precisely because we believe that, under present circumstances, provisional measures will turn into permanent measures and will exacerbate the situation.

Political group: GUE-NGL
draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs. – Mr President, a year ago, in the spirit of Christmas, I prepared an opinion for the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs which was adopted in February 2003. This has been somewhat overlooked in the whole debate, although we have already heard about the latest developments. I should like to remind you that the lack of arrangements for employees' information and consultation was one of the main reasons for rejecting the previous proposal for a directive on takeover bids in 2001. The Commission acknowledged that, to a certain extent, in providing us with Article 13, but our Employment and Social Affairs Committee was almost unanimous in its opinion that it was not enough. The Commission refers only to national Member States' practices and the Employment Committee's opinion explicitly makes information and consultation a mandatory part of takeover bid procedure, both for the companies making the bids – Article 6 – and the target companies – in Article 9. The Group is still of that opinion, and over the last month I have prepared a text which is adapted to the situations in different Member States. This was a big concession to the United Kingdom, whose standards for takeover bids differ from those in the continental Member States. We also adapted the text to bring it into line with the provisions of the directive on the information and consultation of workers. That is why the references are there. So there is no real problem as regards differences of opinion. The only thing is that the main Articles of the directive should explicitly mention information and consultation. My Group wishes to stress that this should be a normal part of the procedure. That is made clear by three amendments that have now been re-tabled: Amendments Nos 35, 36 and 37, and by other amendments that have been tabled by the Groups. Mr Lehne, Mr Huhne and I had a compromise on this, but between Monday 24 November when these three amendments were adopted almost unanimously in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, and Thursday 27 November, before the Council took its position, they left the deal and voted against the three amendments in the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market. That is why that compromise is not in there now. Mr Lehne's argument that it would have complicated the decision-making process is not convincing. The only reason he does not want this to be included is that he wants to press for a first-reading agreement, but in our opinion this takes away Parliament's right to have any input in the discussion. It is still early enough in the negotiations to make this input. The Italian presidency did discuss this seriously enough with the Council: there is still a chance to do so. Our Group is ready to support the compromise, although we are not very enthusiastic about it. Our original position was to make a directive without Articles 9 and 11 protecting minority shareholders' rights. But we only want to support it if these three amendments are adopted. If that is not the case we will vote against the compromise package.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, what has not been stressed sufficiently thus far in the debate I believe is democracy and subsidiarity. Many of the atrocities in the Balkans that we spoke of earlier and much of the racism and antisemitism is because communities everywhere have not been allowed the ability, in line with the concept of subsidiarity, to develop within their own communities the democracy that people need everywhere if they are to evolve and create within their own regions and nations, the social rights, justice, respect for minorities, coexistence of different people and respect for every race and people. Article 3b of the Maastricht Treaty, President, still confines subsidiarity to the relationship between the European Union and the Member States. Regions and stateless nations are ignored. People within their own communities therefore suffer. They are unable to establish the structures they need so that human rights can prosper and the blight of racism can be forever removed. In own nation, Wales, for example, we have no empowerment to establish our own laws to counter racism and defend human rights. The principles of cohesion and the drive to limit poverty and depravity in our communities are a well-settled concept in the European Union. However, it must encompass respect for minorities everywhere if it to inspire the world in its drive towards defeating racism and defending human rights.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, it is a very wise decision of yours not to require us to have another committee meeting. That starts the week on a good note. However, you might like to ask somebody – I suspect it will be the inevitable Mr Corbett – to have a look at the Rules, because they are rather strange. They state that: 'When over 50 amendments have been tabled to a report, the President may, after consulting its chairman, request the committee responsible to meet to consider the amendments.' That leaves you and me looking through a lot of amendments that can sometimes be rather confusing. What we need is either to have a stringent rule simply stating: 'When over 50 amendments have been tabled to a report, the President must request the committee to meet again', or else to drop this. As it stands, it leaves it between the two of us. I am only happy to say that I support your very wise decision.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, I too should like to congratulate and thank Mr Mauro for the report now before us. We are talking about a small programme, and a cheap one, even though it would cost EUR 54 million, but it is a step in the right direction, and it is high time it were taken. The new information and communications technologies are exciting and important, and it is very important that they be integrated into the European education and training systems. The programme we are now talking about must not replace, but support and supplement the initiatives on the part of the Member States. I should like to take up from where Mr Mauro and Mrs Prets left off and, in all modesty, state that we have come a very long way with the new educational technologies in Denmark where 70% of primary schools, 81% of high schools and 92% of vocational and technical courses for young people have daily Internet access. Everyone has something to learn, however, and it is therefore important to be able to use the programme for supporting the promotion and dissemination of best practice, for example by supporting school twinning. It is very important to share experiences of the new technologies in particular, and that is actually an exercise encouraged by the Internet itself. Indeed, mutual aid and the free exchange of ideas are part of the Internet’s splendid philosophy. I am also quite certain that many teachers have benefited from exchanging experiences with their pupils, for the fact is that, in this area, young people have, in many cases, far greater knowledge and experience than their teachers. This too is something that this programme will get to grips with. Education has been high on the agenda for the Lisbon, Stockholm and Barcelona European Councils, and, with the adoption of Mr Mauro’s report, we are taking a step, albeit a modest one, in the right direction of complying with the important decisions taken at these summits.

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, I too would like to ask you to send a message to the President of the United States, Mr Bush, and to the United Kingdom Prime Minister, Mr Blair, recognising the remarkable achievement that, after only two weeks of war, we are now beginning to see the long-suffering Iraqi people being freed from one of the bloodiest tyrants in the world today, and with such a low level of civilian and military casualties, all things considered, in view of the enormity of the task involved. Every loss of innocent life is a tragedy, but Saddam Hussein has executed and tortured more people in the last two weeks for desertion and for welcoming our troops than the alliance may have killed accidentally as a result of the military hostilities. War is never without a price in terms of human suffering, but human freedom and global security for all of us here today has no price.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, I voted for the report on the European Year of People with Disabilities, but Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, there are also some States whose laws include rules which discriminate against people with disabilities. I am sad to say that there is even an Italian law which discriminates against them on age grounds, thus violating Article 13 of the Treaty of Amsterdam. Indeed, it stipulates that people with disabilities who are over 65 years old are not entitled to the EUR 350 allowance granted to people with disabilities who fall ill before they reach the age of 65. I therefore call upon the Commission to present a proposal implementing Article 13 outside the workplace as well, and, at last, to force the States which are not yet applying it to do so. I refer, in particular, to Italy, and I hope that the Berlusconi government will listen to what I am saying and abolish the laws currently in place in Italy – as in other parts of Europe – which discriminate against people with disabilities.

Political group: PPE-DE
Although I have signed this question, as an elected representative, I must say that I am not really its author. As the Commissioner can imagine, the question is posed by farmers, in the European countryside, who are wondering, at this stage, whether they, their income and their Community aid, will have to pay the price of enlargement. The Commissioner has not been explicit. However, his services, the Commission, and some of us MEPs, all know that there are studies and estimates covering this issue. The Commissioner is, at times, the master of side-stepping the question, with all the skill of a bullfighter, and failing to provide an answer. However, the Commission, if it wants the countryside to support its positions, must clear the fog, and be explicit. Therefore, I would ask the Commission, if it does not want to talk of its data and studies – which exist – at least to calm this real fear of the farmers and reply as to whether the cost of enlargement will be met at the expense of the farmers’ income and, furthermore, whether he can guarantee that it will not have an effect on Community aid.

Political group: PSE