GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Mr President, at first reading of this directive, Parliament indicated very clearly to the Council and the Commission that it wished to replace the detailed legislation with general guidelines and to allow a technical committee to prescribe the detailed specifications. However, the Council’s common position rides roughshod over Parliament. The Council has not in any way taken account of Parliament’s firm repudiation of detailed legislation. The report is about more than just buses. It is about the way in which the EU is to legislate. I am not of course opposed to making sure that people with disabilities can use European buses. What I am opposed to is the mode of procedure. I find it quite unreasonable that, as a politician, I should have to take decisions about how many millimetres bus door handles and luggage racks should measure. In my own country, the EU is often made into a laughing-stock for meddling and for regulating in too much detail. People quite rightly question an EU that is in many ways unwieldy and bent on regulating. MEPs’ credibility is brought into question if we take decisions about things we do not know anything about. An example is Annex V of the Council’s common position. I am not ashamed to say that I do not understand the formula according to which the closing power of automatic doors is to be calculated. I do not want to contribute to making ourselves and the EU into laughing-stocks. Despite the fact that I was not involved in the first reading in 1988, I would remind this Parliament that it voted 485 to 1 in favour of the general guidelines rather than the detailed legislation. Why should Parliament change its mind now? For the Swedish Conservative Party, this was an important issue in the 1999 elections. I was elected on a mandate to combat politicians’ inability to leave things alone. I cannot therefore vote in favour of the Council’s common position. I would therefore call upon the whole Parliament to vote in favour of Amendment No 9, tabled by my colleague Mr Lehne and rejecting the Council’s common position.

Political group: PPE-DE
We share the minority opinion of the Committee on Citizens’ Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs condemning this report, which proposes to organise more effectively the deportation mechanisms applicable to migrants ‘residing illegally’. Parliament is asked to make the scope of the original initiative even harsher by removing a passage that rejects transit for the purpose of expulsion in the event that the expelled migrant ‘faces the threat of inhumane or humiliating treatment, torture or death’. By voting for this report, the European Parliament claims for itself and endorses the policy of most national States seeking to expel migrants for whom the local authorities refuse to grant the necessary papers. We, on the other hand, call for a complete halt to deportations, the immediate release of all persons being detained pending deportation and for all those in Europe without residence permits to be given the permanent right to remain.

Political group: GUE-NGL
I am in favour of a system based on the informed consent of every consumer. Consumers must possess all the information that enables them to assess the advisability of purchasing the products they enjoy. To make this choice, consumers must be given objective information. At the present time, however, certain groups are out to frighten consumers, even though there is no evidence of any harm caused by genetically improved products, far less by products derived from animals reared on genetically improved feed. I do not see how a food item can be labelled ‘organic’ if five per cent of its ingredients are of non-organic origin, whereas some people are doggedly determined to stigmatise any product accidentally containing a minuscule quantity of a GMO. It is high time Europe showed the red card to those green-tinted fundamentalists who have nothing better to do than wage war on GMOs. The Union must lay down rules reflecting the responsible conduct of countries from the United States to China, including India, South Africa and others, that have been producing and consuming genetically improved products for years without any problems whatsoever. In so doing, we should be following the age-old tradition of the world’s peasant farmers, who, through selection and crossbreeding, have genetically modified all the products we have been consuming for centuries.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, allow me to comment directly on Commissioner Nielson’s speech. Being able only to wait and see is not such a simple matter, at any rate for those of us in Parliament. Alongside the budget, we are working – as you know, Commissioner Nielson – on the directive that you are responsible for and that is to lay down the rate for the next four years, for which the Commission has proposed a total amount of EUR 300 million. According to the Committee on Development and Cooperation, this amount is altogether too little, not only for the purposes of obtaining the necessary flexibility and going in and supporting the Global AIDS and Health Fund, but also for ensuring that the EU’s own work, via the resources of our own secretariat, is as ambitious as possible. I think that both the Council and the Commission ought to welcome the fact that Parliament has this very ambitious attitude towards an issue and a problem that will dominate the discussions of development issues, not only in Africa but also in many other regions during the next few decades. Alongside this issue, there are a further couple of factors that it is incredibly important to define when we discuss the part of the budget concerned with development cooperation. Mr Howitt has already mentioned focusing on health, education and efforts to combat poverty. I should like to say to Mr Nielson that one of the reasons why we are returning to these areas in order to clarify them is that the Commission’s work in the field indicates that it is specifically health care and education that still receive an extremely small proportion of the aid, something we regard as being manifestly wrong and clearly not good enough. Finally, it is incredibly important that we be more flexible within the European Union and ensure that needs that arise in connection with war and disasters are not constantly financed from long-term development programmes upon which they correspondingly place a burden. That is why the proposal to fund aid to Afghanistan using the flexibility reserve is extremely interesting.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, yesterday you showed you have a sense of history, and that prompts me to ask a question about the European School Portal supported by the European Commission. Last week, a web site of this kind was opened that refers to a Soviet history book from 1982, according to which Finland supposedly initiated the Winter War. We all know that the Winter War began with the ‘Mainila shots’ staged by Stalin, and it is outrageous that the European School Portal should contain this type of error. It offends my national sentiment and feeling for history. The Commission has promised to investigate the matter, but I would ask that Parliament’s authorities too look into the issue. It is outrageous that European schools should allow such poor quality on its web sites accessible via the School Portal.

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, when, a few months ago, we established the guidelines for the 2003 Budget, there was widespread agreement in the European Parliament on three priorities for category 5. These were the preparations for the coming enlargement, necessary institutional reforms and managing both enlargement and the institutional reforms within the budgetary framework. If, at its meeting in Copenhagen in December, the European Council decides to carry out a big bang, in which 10 new countries become Member States in time for the next elections to the European Parliament in 2004, this will place extraordinary demands on the system. There is no greater challenge than this. Through its far-sighted policy, the European Parliament has worked long and hard to bring about the coming enlargement. This work will now continue in the 2003 budget. If all this is to be managed successfully, enlargement must be given the greatest priority in all EU institutions and must also have a tangible impact on the ongoing budgetary work. With this in mind, it is positive and encouraging that the incoming Danish Presidency has made very clear that enlargement is its main priority. This work must also make inroads in the EU’s own organisation. During this year, it has been expressed extremely clearly, not least by the European Parliament, that each institution must complete preparations for enlargement before 2004. This places particular demands on next year’s budget. The conciliation with the Council in just over two weeks will form an extremely important part of this work, not least regarding the opportunities to reach an agreement concerning category 5.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, the Helsinki Summit took account of the proposal for a charter of rights. Today President Chirac made clear his view that an enlarged Europe must be built around respect for rights. We agree with that, but we insist that a democratic European Union must be built on the rule of law as an equal partner with a charter of rights. My SNP colleague Mr Hudghton and I did not join in the discourteous and petulant walk-out from President Chirac's speech this morning. As a result, Mr Hudghton was able to put to President Chirac our point of view and get an undertaking for a possible reply to a letter we sent yesterday. Another issue alive is that of enlarging the Union. We share enthusiasm for enlargement provided proper institutional reform goes ahead. It should, however, be remembered that there are not only nations in Eastern and Central Europe seeking entry, there are ancient nations in Western Europe too, represented here by the , which seek fair recognition as members in Europe. Our claims deserve better than an embarrassed silence that contrasts with the welcome others receive. Reform of the institutions must create space for due recognition of existing regions and unrepresented nations. We used to hear a lot about the Europe of the regions, a phrase less in use nowadays than a few years ago. Not only did the Helsinki Council make paltry progress toward curing Europe's democratic deficit, but it did nothing at all about what ought to be recognised as a regional deficit. Our task in the is to get it recognised and cured with the help of our colleagues in the .

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr Piétrasanta and I worked together in perfect cooperation: you will not therefore be surprised to hear the same points stressed again in the few comments that I would like to make. Of the various points made by the AFET Committee in its opinion, two seemed to us to be particularly important. The first – and you have reassured us, Commissioner – was the need to ensure that the democracy clause in the association agreements is respected and the need to carry out regular and transparent checks on the impact of the MEDA programme on human rights, and this on the basis of an annual report provided by the Commission in accordance with clear criteria, a precise agenda and training in this field for European officials. The second point was the importance of establishing an open and tolerant civil society in these Mediterranean countries, in particular by supporting the independence of small NGOs, and in this respect the AFET Committee regrets the fact that so few Mediterranean countries have been selected in the horizontal democracy programmes under the EIDHR and that, for example, neither Morocco nor Egypt, where civil society is active yet still fragile, will benefit. This was and still is Europe’s vision of a transition towards more democracy in the countries of the Mediterranean, a transition supported by MEDA funding, by various different instruments, but also by a dialogue, in the form of a forum today and perhaps a Euro-Mediterranean parliamentary assembly tomorrow. The report was presented in March 2003. A few days later war broke out in Iraq: it represented another vision of the democratic transition, a brutal and tragic vision that many people do not share. The Euromed dialogue is struggling to recover from this war. It will take more than a MEDA programme to get it back on track. Let us hope that the adoption of the Middle East roadmap by the Quartet will be the first step towards doing so and a genuine sign of hope.

Political group: PSE
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the ECSC Treaty will soon expire. Nevertheless, in Germany there is a compromise solution for coal which will run until the year 2005. I am assuming – and I hope that the Commission will contribute appropriate constructive solutions – that we will have a transitional arrangement to fill the three years between 2002 and 2005. But for the time after 2005 I should like to make it quite clear that there can be no 10% energy base in the EU Member States which is exempt from all supervision by the European Union's competition authorities. This is no solution for the future. This solution would damage the European Union's competition policy and at the same time make energy more expensive – on top of the effect of promoting renewable energies – which would in the end harm Europe's desirability as a business location. - Clegg Report (A5-0298/2000)

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, the United Nations Conference opens a week after the presidential elections in Zimbabwe. By then hand-wringing resolutions deploring human rights abuses by a re-elected Mugabe government would be no more meaningful than were the protests of the then League of Nations following Mussolini's invasion of Abyssinia. The European Union has issued deadlines and ultimata. We must now gather support from the international community for those measures. We should thank President Mbeki and other African leaders for their work behind the scenes, but now is the time for them to speak out publicly and firmly against Mugabe's oppressive regime. We must make sure that the conditions of our ultimata are met in full. We must be sure that Mugabe will allow an EU team to observe the election process and the EU must be allowed to choose the make-up of that team, which should include British Members. Our observers must be free to move where they wish and free to report back. A genuine free press must be restored and recent media laws must be repealed. Above all, the murder, maiming and intimidation of political opponents must stop now. It is time for the world to judge Mugabe by his actions, not by his promises. By the same token, the world will judge the EU by its effectiveness, not by its rhetoric.

Political group: PPE-DE
Once again, this agenda item has been used as a pretext in order to make a nonsense of the protocol on the seat of the European institutions. The vast majority of Members of the European Parliament who voted for the removal of the Friday sitting are pursuing a strategy whose aims are crystal clear: they wish to move more plenary sittings to Brussels. After the Friday sitting, they will set their sights on Thursday’s sitting. Once we have cut the part-session in Strasbourg to the length of a mini-session, the same voices will call, on grounds of rationalisation, for an end to Strasbourg’s tenure as the seat of the European Parliament. Because I do not want to be party to this strategy, I did not vote for the relevant amendments. Furthermore, I think that it is quite illogical to remove a half-day sitting, whilst, at the same time, complaining that the European Parliament has an excessive workload. I note that nobody has bothered to add the hours lost on Fridays to the calendar for 2001! - Schengen Agreement

Political group: PSE
Madam President, I refer to Article 142, paragraph 1 of our Rules of Procedure, under which an infringement of the Rules of Procedure can be pointed out to the President. In this case it is Article 147 of the Rules of Procedure, which states that a motion to suspend must be put to the vote. You have not allowed us to vote. You declared the vote of 32 Members to be a vote. That was a clear infringement of the Rules of Procedure. We cannot allow our Bureau to push us around whenever we have a tight agenda. (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE
Madam President, I personally am very happy that Mrs Swiebel’s report sums up the human rights situation in the European Union and even within the Member States. I believe it to be a cornerstone of the work of this Parliament because it enables us to take a step back, which is so unusual here, and consider a clear, coherent policy with specific actions to achieve the goals we proclaim so often. I shall not insult you by citing the various conventions and treaties that we must observe or by restating our will to anchor the Charter of Fundamental Rights unconditionally in European consciousness in order to establish the rights and freedoms of these European citizens. Each year, however, when we draw up a report on human rights, when we lament the violations that have taken place, when we adopt resolutions, we only talk about third countries. How can we have credibility and impose these rights in our relations with these countries, if we ourselves do not respect them? Some Members here will be horrified at the thought of naming certain countries in this report. We must not, however, shy away from this. As democrats, we are representatives of our citizens; we are not protectors of the policies of our national governments. We must confirm, here in Parliament, that the defence of fundamental rights and freedoms in the European Union is more than just words; it affects every aspect of life, for all human beings, wherever they may be, whether or not they live in an area of freedom. Defending human rights is a duty and a right which must not be hampered by the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of the Member States. The purpose of this report is therefore to assess the situation. It is our role to act if this situation does not satisfy us, so that these fundamental rights might be a fact of everyday life in our own Member States. I shall end on two points: first, I am very happy that economic and social rights are assessed at European level and I believe this Convention should take inspiration from that. I would then ask our Member States to do what it takes to establish clear statistics, sorted by gender, in every area, and provide them to our next rapporteurs.

Political group: PSE
Madam President, I refer to the vote on paragraph 21, not the proposed amendment.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, Valenciano Martínez-Orozco’s excellent report clearly states that female genital mutilation is a crime, about which Europe must not remain silent. I too appeal to all Members of Parliament to show their unanimous support for the report in tomorrow’s vote. Female genital mutilation, of whatever degree, is an act of violence against women, which violates their fundamental rights, their individual integrity, and their physical and mental health. The rights of women, young girls or baby girls are being trampled on in the name of various cultural traditions or even the assumed dictates of religion. Ever present in the background, however, is women’s social status and position, which is inferior to that of men in these cultures. There is therefore also a need to promote equality. Regrettably, female genital mutilation has been found to have taken place and to be taking place in immigrant communities in the EU also, although this practice is prohibited in the criminal legislation of Member States and it is clearly in breach of the principles of the European Union Charter of Fundamental Rights. No religious or cultural practice can be allowed to take precedence over the basic principles of human rights or someone’s physical and mental integrity, on which European democracy is based. We must also vehemently resist the demand that genital mutilation should be carried out by doctors in clinical conditions. This must not be compared to male circumcision, where this practice has been adopted in some Member States. I support the report’s positive measures that aim to end these crimes in EU Member States. Information, awareness-raising and prevention must be the priorities. But we also have to take action where the crime of mutilation has already occurred, with penal measures and sanctions. Personally, I am also prepared to adopt the principle of extraterritoriality in this connection. I urge authorities in the Member States, and, as a Finnish member, obviously those in my native country of Finland in particular, to implement all necessary measures as soon as possible to bring to an end these inhuman violations of human rights, which are something out of the Middle Ages. (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE
Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Hans-Peter Martin is right. There are not very many of us in the Chamber. We do not know how many people are watching this in their offices and we do not know how many people would watch if we could broadcast this sitting on the Internet. If it were even possible to use video streaming to play this sitting at an agreeable time of day, then I think the hits on our web page would rocket, and it would be possible for people to analyse and monitor what goes on here more transparently and also much more effectively. What do we need? It has to be quicker; it has to be more efficient. We need search engines that direct people to the right place as quickly as possible on the basis of key words. Entering ‘Hans-Peter Martin’, ‘Paul Rübig’, ‘e-commerce’ and ‘participants present’ ought to take you straight to this sitting. I think that our world has changed, that the networked society is actually already a reality. It has been possible to complete bureaucratic formalities, conduct business and so on electronically for a long time, but some of the necessary prerequisites are lacking. When the WTO negotiations take place in Cancun in the autumn we need to ask ourselves: to what extent has world trade been liberalised? If Hans-Peter Martin clicks on a home page now and wants to order a book from America or a certain piece of software, what barriers and what bureaucracy will he have to contend with? What duties will have to be paid and above all, what is the postal service going to do about shipping and delivery costs, which are currently completely unreasonable for small parcels? We need more competition in the postal services sector. We need secure payment systems, we need a system of damages that protects customers from fraud, and we need e-money that enables us to pay as if paying with cash. Applying the banknotes system to e-money is something that we are definitely going to need to do in the future. Finally, we also need a Europe-wide investigation into the obstacles to using these new technologies.

Political group: PPE-DE