GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Mr President, Commissioner De Palacio, ladies and gentlemen, I would also like to thank Mr Collins for his successful report. The continuing growth of air travel is causing pressure on air travel safety. Safety precautions are essential. Although air travel has been a relatively safe form of transport, the congestion of airports and airspace has increased the risk of accidents. The majority of accidents are due to human factors. Aviation is becoming more technical and is increasingly relying on the ability of staff on the ground to produce safe air navigation services. For this reason it is important to obtain information on the functioning of these services. Gathering and storing information about exceptional occurrences and exchanging information are vital to increasing the safety levels of civil aviation. It is important that exchanging information regarding risk situations and accidents functions both within and between Member States. Member States must exchange experiences and information so that more risk situations can be avoided. If the transfer of information on security deficiencies is to be improved, however, we have to guarantee the data protection of individuals and companies, as Mr Collins proposes in his report. Each year, Member States must submit a report on the level of safety of civil aviation. If a risk situation or accident is due to serious negligence, the Member State must have the right to initiate legal proceedings. In my opinion, cooperation between Member States to increase safety in civil aviation is an important precaution due to the growth of air travel. The safety of Europe’s airspace is to everyone’s benefit.

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Members of the Commission, as my fellow Portuguese Members have said, the abundant rainfall, the storms and the floods have caused enormous material damage, injuries and deaths in the Douro, Mondego and Tagus basins. They have caused a genuine disaster. In requesting the support and the solidarity of the European Union, we are not trying to solicit an emotional reaction; we do not want to give the impression that we are courting pity or that we are merely asking for help. The Portuguese Government has not failed to provide support for the areas that have been affected and there has been no lack of national solidarity. Financial support from the European Union, however, is just as important for Portugal as it is for the European Union itself. In fact, even more important than the material size of such a contribution is its symbolic, moral and emotional effect. Strengthening the sense of belonging to the European Union and the awareness of European citizenship also requires these small, symbolic gestures and brings Europe closer to the people. The communities that have been affected by the storms and the population will, in general, feel that the European Union is not indifferent to their tragedies and problems. Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioners, this is the best way for the European Union to touch people’s hearts, regardless of how much it contributes. This is why we are asking the Commission to use its imagination and to provide an answer to our request and to our proposals.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, the representative of Parliament in Nice summed up the result as a catastrophe. It is impossible to understand how one can cold-bloodedly build a future conflict between large and small countries into the treaty. It is even more difficult to understand how the Council can refuse to introduce a reference to the rights which all Member States have previously signed up to. How are citizens to understand that their elected representatives do not wish to confirm the rights which they politically pretend to support? A weak treaty may pose a risk to an expanded EU, which has to combine many different legal traditions. We want to see higher ambitions when it comes to reaching decisions on who is to do what, who is to decide what and how, and on rights and democracy. The debate with the citizens must focus on the central issues of the future in a more flexible Europe. A democratic convention is required, not merely a website, to create open debate and open decisions. The presidency gives the impression of seeking to avoid the key issues of the debate on Europe. This is tantamount to shirking its responsibility to lead Europe. Seize the opportunity to contribute to a democratic EU with a democratic European Parliament – which I also hope the presidency will show respect for.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, I would have welcomed it if there had been no reason for me to rise at this point. I had assumed you would be making a statement at the start of this sitting on how you see this difficult situation. I rose only because others have now risen and I then feel obliged to do so as well. First of all, however, I believe it is essential for you to make a statement on your view of the situation. I reserve the right to speak again at that stage. I will only refrain from commenting further at this point if you now supply this House with the information it requires. (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, the resolution presented this morning in plenary is indeed the result of agreement and consensus across all the political groups within the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development. Consensus would never have been reached however, without the wonderful work of Mr Daul, the Chairman of the Committee. I would like to thank him for all he has done. Through the resolution all the political groups demonstrate their support for reform of the common agricultural policy, a reform which we all deem necessary. We welcome and support its objectives. It is vital that the second pillar of the CAP is strengthened as regards the budget, by transferring funds from the first to the second pillar. Strengthening the second pillar, and extending its scope to food safety and quality, are certainly very positive moves. In addition, the reform envisages the dynamic adjustment of funds in accordance with the criteria for social and territorial cohesion. Nonetheless, some very worrying elements remain. The compulsory adjustment proposed in the reform does not constitute true adjustment. Rather, it is an across-the-board reduction in aid which I cannot support. We are very concerned about the principle of decoupling aid. The notion of a reference period cannot be used to establish single payment and decoupling. If that were to happen, it would amount to doing away with the use of this instrument to distribute the support provided by the CAP more fairly, given that the policy has created profound differences between farming areas and farmers across the European Union. Following our debate on the Council’s agreement, reform is all the more necessary. It is not possible for all farmers to pay in equal measure for the reduction in the budget for agriculture. The 5% of farmers who received 50% of direct aid in 2001 might cope with this reduction but the small and medium-sized farmers certainly cannot.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, as the final speaker I, too, would like to join in thanking Mrs Thors for what is, as Mr Caudron has just said, a very well-balanced report. It is a focused report. I should like to conclude by making a link to the next debate on electronic communications. In this whole area we have to be very conscious about how fast technology is moving and how that technology is beginning to change our whole thinking and indeed the whole form of competition in which digital television and other media are developing. I come from a country where there is a long tradition of public service broadcasting and that is one of the areas Mrs Thors has addressed powerfully in her report: the questions of access to this new technology and access to the viewer. Let us not forget that one of the key things that all people in the industry are facing is competition for a very scarce amount of viewer time. As channels multiply, viewers are having more choice – not just in looking at programmes but in being able to shop, to use interactive Internet media through their digital televisions; interactive media which they can pay for. They can pay for a sports event with interaction to be able to choose the sort of format that they want. It will not be long before they are able to buy a digital recorder which will hold hundreds of hours of television time on a hard disk which will be sorted for them so they will be able to watch things in time shift. They will have different forms of competition. We have to make sure that our legislation does not constrict the growth of technology and does not constrain the growth of competition that is going to come through these new forms of technology. That is an issue we have to think about, both in considering Mr van Velzen's report and in the new report on copyright in the information society which will be before this House in a few months' time.

Political group: PPE-DE
Is the Commissioner satisfied that KFOR is adequately controlling and successfully preventing movements of fighters and arms across the border between Kosovo and FYROM?

Political group: PPE-DE
Madam President, on behalf of the Group of the European People’s Party and , I want to express our most profound feeling of solidarity with the families of Fernando Buesa, an elected representative of the Basque people, and Jorge Díez, a member of the Basque police force. We also naturally want to express our solidarity with the whole of the Basque Socialist Party. In recent times, in this House, we have sadly had to discuss the various faces of extremism in Europe. It does not matter what banner these come under because, in the end, they are all different expressions of the same thing. Faced with these, we democrats cannot resign ourselves to the peace of the dead. On the contrary, we must take strength from knowing that the only social division which exists in the Basque Country is the abyss which separates those who kill, and those who support and express understanding for the latter, from the vast majority of the Basque people who simply want to live in peace and freedom. (Loud applause)

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, may I say, on behalf of the Group of the , that it gives us some satisfaction to see the Commission and the Council finally recognise what we have been repeating for years and especially over recent months: first that, in shipbuilding, Europe has set itself more constraints more quickly than its main competitors and, secondly and more importantly, that South Korea is guilty of blatantly infringing the rules of competition with its outrageous financial dumping. That is why we welcomed the Commission's recent efforts, even if I do take issue with the calculation methods used to show very high levels of European aid in chapter 5 of the Council report of 5 December. Due to a lack of time today, I shall explain myself directly to the Commissioner in writing on this point. More importantly, we have also taken note of the Council's conclusions of 5 December, a Council which agreed to safeguard the future by standing its ground with South Korea and not dismissing the possibility of reintroducing shipbuilding aid in May for the specific market segments hardest hit by Korean competition. This approach is also in line with the Treaty, although I do not have time to go into this in greater detail. Another positive outcome from the Council meeting was that the ‘ships arrangement’ for export credits dating from 1981 was updated at the SBT. Finally, we were interested to note the Council's willingness to consider aid for research and development. This point is very important to some enterprises, to enterprises which are, in fact, highly innovative. What we are calling for, what I am calling for today is the full and – more importantly – the immediate application of the Council's conclusions. If it should prove necessary to re-introduce aid in May 2001, we must do so without delay. We are also worried about the sixth framework programme for research and development: the ‘marine technology’ line in the fifth programme appears to have disappeared in the draft programme. I personally find this unacceptable; it should be reinstated in terms of quantity and in terms of the method for using these appropriations so as to simplify them. Finally, as from 18 December, we are, of course, counting on the ‘ships arrangement’ being examined at the OECD Group 6 meeting. I shall finish by congratulating Mr Langen – I appreciate his support for workers and for the need for state intervention in order to defend the economy – and by advising the Commission to make good use, in the future, of the lesson which it has been given in shipbuilding and in the shameless competition of certain countries of the world.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, for about ten years I have been involved with campaigns to promote education throughout the world. A hundred and twenty-five million children, mainly girls, do not receive any education. I am extremely pleased that I am now a Member of the European Parliament and can take specific action and that in this resolution all Groups are saying that the EU development cooperation budget should be doubled. We are not talking about more money for the development budget but about redistribution within that budget. According to Commissioner Nielson, we spend 5% on education as a whole and an estimated 80% of that on primary education. Because I am also rapporteur for the budget for the year 2001, I hope that we as a Parliament, in consultation with Commissioner Nielson – who has, moreover, said that he wants to move in this direction – will be able to double that budget next year. That would really be a concrete step forward, because so much of the money that we spend simply does not reach the poorest people and is not a step towards real development. Finally, we cannot develop others, they must develop themselves, but this is a wonderful opportunity to help them and Parliament, together with the Commission, will soon be able to translate this resolution very specifically into real action in the 2001 budget.

Political group: PSE
The (NGL), which consists of the Nordic members of the Group of the , has today voted in favour of the report concerning the service of legal documents in civil and commercial matters. The purpose of the proposal is to ensure the protected and regulated forwarding of legal documents between the Member States’ legal authorities, and this is something we can fully support. The rejects, however, the idea that the proposal should be in the form of a regulation. The prefers a convention. In that way, the proposal would not be directly binding in the Member States, but it would be up to the countries themselves to decide whether they wanted to participate in the convention or not. - Gebhardt report (A5-0057/1999)

Political group: GUE-NGL
Madam President, the increase in unemployment, in insecure employment and in social exclusion cast doubt upon the concept of a Europe that champions social justice and solidarity. We know that there are more than 15 million unemployed people in the European Union and more than 60 million who live on less than 60% of the average national income. These are problems that mainly affect women, but also the elderly living on very low pensions, immigrants, children, people with disabilities and workers in insecure and badly paid jobs. The situation is considerably worse in the candidate countries that will be joining the Union in May next year. In light of this worsening socio-economic situation, measures must be adopted that are different to those used to date, because disparities have increased, cohesion has weakened and no real progress has been made as regards gender equality policy. The current situation calls for absolute priority no longer to be given to complying with the Stability Pact and, on the contrary, for this to be suspended so that its irrational criteria for nominal convergence can be reviewed. The current situation calls for the primacy of monetarist and competition policies to be ended and for resolving these serious social problems to be put on the agenda, for compliance with the Social Policy Agenda and for an effective public investment policy in order to create the fifteen million jobs that the European Union needs. Consequently, as stated in my recent report on implementing the Social Policy Agenda, which this plenary adopted in September, priority must be given to solving the serious problems of unemployment and poverty – including persistent poverty – in all Community policies, specifically in competition policy (and since the Commissioner responsible for the common agricultural policy is here with us, this could at least help us to look at farming issues and here too amend policy, with a view to combating poverty and social exclusion), not forgetting the Structural Funds and the Stability Pact. We regret the fact that the Commission is not only failing to comply with the Nice social agenda, but also still has no plans to present new initiatives in areas already requested by the European Parliament, which has insisted that these be drawn up rapidly. This is a long list, which other speakers have already referred to, but which we also adopted at the sitting of 3 September and for which I once again express my support, in addition to agreeing with all the questions that have been put here. I repeat the need for effective measures, for mechanisms for intervention in the field of company relocations, and of the directives on Article 13, both with regard to women’s rights in all the various areas of employment and to people with disabilities. We must make good the delays in improving the directives intended to promote health and safety in the workplace, specifically for women, and the proposals that this Parliament has approved must be implemented.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Madam President, what is so outrageous about the illegal exploitation of the Congo's natural resources is that it is all too apparent that Congolese politicians, as well as politicians from other countries – whether or not these countries have been called upon to provide military assistance – have helped themselves to an equally shameless degree, as have high-ranking military personnel, particularly from Zimbabwe. Numerous private undertakings have also joined in helping themselves to the country's raw materials. Although firms from outside Europe are also involved, we should very definitely be working through and analysing the list naming European firms and private individuals. This should be done in the individual Member States and with a view to criminal prosecution. I do not think that there is much of a distinction of substance to be drawn between this case and the way in which corrupt African regimes grant licenses for the extraction of raw materials, with part of the license fees or indeed of the proceeds going straight into the ruler's personal bank account. Some of this may even be listed as a receipt in the state's budget, but it is virtually unheard of for the people to benefit from it in the shape of infrastructure or health provision. The fact that these regimes can only keep themselves in power because they are kept by Europe means that what we need is a debate, in plain words, on the principles by which we Europeans are guided in our dealings with Africa. There is an unspeakable and unacceptable discrepancy between, on the one hand, the text of the Cotonou Treaty and the honeyed words that we will get to hear in Lisbon over the coming weeks at the Franco-African and EU-African summits, and, on the other, the brutal reality of Africa. We cannot fail to observe that certain governments collude and collaborate with European firms that then provide certain regimes with a lifeline in order to maximise their own profits. If we do not speak frankly about these things, we will bring about no real change in the situations in Africa.

Political group: PPE-DE
Madam President, I would like to thank the Commissioner and the rapporteur for her report. I very much applaud the principle of having brought this up for debate. It is a major step towards a common European immigration policy. Without legal means, many people resort to dangerous and illegal ways of circumventing frontiers. Without legal migration, we will struggle to meet our target of making Europe the most competitive economy in the world by 2010. I was saddened by what Mr Nassauer has said. We have to move the debate forward. There are 350 million people in the European Union at the moment and there will soon be 500 million. He has highlighted that 50 million of those may be unemployed, 5 million of them in Germany. However, as Mr Nassauer will know, and as we have heard in the previous debate, it is not as easy as we would like for someone to move from one EU country to another to work. We must do more to facilitate that, certainly, but in the meantime we must also do more to have legal migration, so as to ensure that the vacant positions we have are filled. We have also got to make sure there are safeguards, because in encouraging third country nationals into the EU we must also make certain that we are not depriving those countries of the very important key workers that they need to help them develop. We do not want to take all the doctors and nurses and teachers from developing countries simply because we need them. But then neither, on the other hand, do we want to say to third country nationals: ‘you can come to the EU but the only jobs you can do are the low-level, manual, nasty jobs that we don't want to do’. So we have got to have a properly balanced scheme, with legal migration that respects individuals and respects their position, supporting both third countries and the EU. The UK may not have chosen to opt into this measure at the moment, but I am contributing to this debate and participating in it as other British Members are because we want to make certain that we have sound legislation laying down sensible provisions, so that the UK will be able to opt into it in the future.

Political group: PSE