GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Mr President, Commissioner, the only reason the voices of these two women, Safiya Hussaini and Hafsatu Abubakar, have reached this Chamber today from the distant regions of Sokoto and Katsina in Nigeria is because their situation is the very epitome of all that is unacceptable. Guilty of having given birth as divorcées and condemned to the most horrible of deaths, by stoning, Mrs Hussaini and Mrs Abubakar are guilty of being women in a region which fundamentalist Koranic or Sharia law has stripped of all semblance of humanity. The citizens of certain regions of Nigeria bound and gagged by obscurantist customs are the victims not just of moral regression but also of the regression of civilisation itself. We have heard the voices of these victims. Thanks to us and because the entire international community has been moved and motivated, the authorities and national courts in Nigeria have pardoned these two martyrs to religious fundamentalism. But how can we possibly think that these efforts suffice, when these precepts of times gone by, which victimise and condemn millions of citizens from the day they are born, continue to apply? The federal state of Nigeria condemns these practices and these courts through its constitution and its international undertakings. Now it should prove that actions speak louder than words. In doing so, it could take on the role and set the example which the calibre of its democracy and its transition to democracy have conferred on it within the African and international community. If it effectively restores the rule of law and demonstrates intransigence in the face of ethnic, sexist or religious intolerance, Nigeria should be able to continue to benefit from Community aid. If all Nigerians recognised the primacy of human rights, and of course women's rights, over any religious precepts or principles, the European Union would respond by providing full support in a spirit of solidarity for the democratic and economic reforms under way in Nigeria.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, within our groups in Parliament and within the IGC itself we are still struggling with the problems that proved fairly intractable at Amsterdam. These issues are tricky because they expose both the exaggerated self-importance of small states and the folie de grandeur of the big states. These issues can only be resolved by a greater sense of trust between partners – such trust that is the essential glue of successful federal pacts. This trust is precisely the quality that is needed so that we are able to ensure the successful accession of the new Member States. The fact is – and somebody should say this – that if the IGC fails to resolve the Amsterdam questions, enlargement must be postponed. The supports the efforts of the presidency and of the Commission to build up the extra trust required. We support the main thrust of this report. We support especially those elements which expand the European Union’s capacity for action in global affairs: those that strengthen the status and the profile of the citizen, including the Charter; and those that will postulate further political reform in the interests of a strong executive and a mature parliamentary democracy. In this respect the splitting of the Treaties is vital. So is retention of unanimity within the Council exclusively for the most serious questions. Liberals everywhere support ministers that will subscribe to the development of European parliamentary democracy. But we will be savage critics of those who prefer narrow self-interest and threaten the accession of new Member States.

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, please allow me, although very briefly, to protest at the poor scheduling of such an important debate in Wednesday’s agenda. I pointed this out on Monday and I reiterate my protest. In this case I am taking the floor on behalf of the Committee on Budgets in order to mention the main points which that Committee considers to be important at the Conference on the reform of the Treaties, based on the principle that, in politics, it is a mistake to ignore budgets. I will list the points very briefly: the reform of the budgetary procedure, involving its updating; the extension of budgetary codecision; the integration of the peripheral institutions into the Community system; the consolidation of the financial perspective in the form of a genuine medium-term financial programme; the reform of the own resources system with a view to ensuring the financial autonomy and efficiency of the Union, on the one hand, and the transparency of the Community budget on the other, which means that there will be codecision in the determining of the overall level of own resources; the introduction of the possibility of creating fiscal instruments at a European level; the possibility that the budgetary authority may intervene every year in relation to the mix of different categories of sources of revenue; and the extension of legislative codecision and decision making by qualified majority for financial regulations in all programmes or instruments which involve Community expenditure, the CAP regulations and any act which creates an executive agency.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, I would like, firstly, to also congratulate Mr Fiori on his excellent report, which I fully agree with, because the very hopeful future possibilities offered to us by biotechnology must not lead us to forget that the human being cannot, under any circumstances, be used as an instrument at the service of science, and Mr Fiori’s report clearly defines ethical limits for biotechnological research. In fact, a supposedly civilised society such as ours, which flies the flag of human rights, cannot tolerate the manipulation of the human being, even in its embryonic state, however noble the objective may be. Therefore, research using embryonic mother cells, even if they are surplus, human cloning – of whatever kind, because it is all the same, since it means the destruction of a human being or opens the door to that possible destruction – and the creation of embryos for research, are unacceptable practices because they attack the dignity of the human being and the supreme value of life which this Parliament, and the European Union, claims to defend so passionately.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, like everybody else here, I enormously appreciate the work which Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi did as rapporteur, partly because we appreciated so much her work as chair of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market. I agree very much with the three points she wanted us to focus on, although on one I take a different view. We are all agreed about the importance of preserving a role for national offices. On the second point about jurisdiction, it seems to many of us to have been a part of the genius of the development of the European Community that justice was largely decentralised and that the role of the Community courts in matters particularly of private law and commercial law was an advisory or secondary role, with the main jurisdictions being localised. That is a vitally important principle to keep – if it can be done without destroying the patent regime. As Mr Lehne said, there are wrong roads that we could go down that would end up with a dispersal of Community jurisdictions and parallel jurisdictions between the national systems and the Community system. That would be a great pity. So I hope that the jurisdictional proposals will be accepted. Then there is the language regime, a question on which I differ, with great respect for Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi, and so does my group. We believe that sustaining the existing system inside the European Patent Office is important. On the other hand, we also believe that people should be able to put forward a patent claim in their own language. We then believe that it should be translated into all the other languages – not the whole process but just, as it says in Amendment No 20(c), 'issued in the language of submission and in the official language in which the procedure has been carried out, accompanied by translation of the patent claims and of a short abstract in the other official languages of the Community', and then paragraph (d), 'translations shall be performed by the Translation Centre for the bodies of the European Union and costs borne by the European Union'. Preserving the principle of linguistic equality is an important public good of the European Union. The Union should pay for that. It should not become a cost to patent holders. Therefore the objections about over-pricing the European patent would not apply.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Madam President, can I impose on your goodwill and Parliament's goodwill for a moment in welcoming to the diplomatic gallery a delegation from Kazakhstan? They are in Parliament today and tomorrow to raise awareness of the former Soviet empire's nuclear testing programme which impacted not just severely but hugely on their country. They had 607 nuclear explosions in the atmosphere between 1949 and 1990. This has left part of their country completely devastated and I hope Parliament will give them a sympathetic hearing in the seminar they are holding here this afternoon. They have a huge problem in raising world awareness of this former Soviet problem. We shall also be discussing the problems of the submarine that sank, another part of the nuclear legacy that has been left by the Soviet Union.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, perhaps the expression ‘knowledge-based society’ deserves further consideration. I am a research scientist in my country and I cannot hear the expression ‘knowledge-based society’ without flinching. I feel it is important to highlight two points in this regard. First, what is the language of knowledge? If Europe can contribute something to the mundus, to the world, well, it is precisely its linguistic diversity. It has been repeated time and time again, and I in turn would like to reiterate that it is essential for linguistic diversity to go hand in hand with cultural diversity. If we have a European project, if we also want to show what Europe can give to the world and receive in return, it will be achieved through the linguistic expertise that is so well represented in Parliament. All we ask is that this should also be the case in universities. Thank you, Mrs De Sarnez, for having emphasised this point. Now, the language of knowledge is one thing, but knowledge itself is quite another. Commissioner, you said that you accept certain amendments but not others. You are happy for us to point out that equal opportunities are essential but you do not want this to be given too much emphasis. You accept – and these were my amendments – that, overall, there is an objective of equal distribution between the so-called ‘hard’ sciences and the ‘literary’ sciences, but you do not want that to be a selection criterion, if I understood your comments today correctly. I am happy to go no further than principles and guidelines. In order to belong to the world of research and higher education, however, we are quite aware that there must also sometimes be restrictions and that objectives need to be emphasised and in more than just a few words. With regard to the humanities, think of the Sixth Framework Programme for research. Until the Fifth Framework Programme, the humanities were a means, rather than an objective of research; they could assist the other sciences but they were not considered to be separate sciences as such in terms of funding research. Since the Sixth Framework Programme for research, the humanities have a clearly-recognised place, and I am particularly happy about that. Commissioner, I would like the points concerning equal opportunities, such as an equal balance between all sciences and all disciplines, to be more than mere words. I would like it to be genuinely possible to promote them with regard to the movement of students and young researchers or future researchers.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, I too wish to congratulate Mr Marques on the excellent work he has carried out here, not least with regard to the clear distinction he has made between the existence of the Canary Islands’ having their own tax arrangements as a right and the possibility of discrimination in favour of certain local products to boost their economic development. I also wish to welcome our fellow Members from the Canaries who are present and say that, speaking on behalf of the Azores, we stand shoulder to shoulder with you and that we fully support your objectives of achieving the most balanced possible form of development for the Canaries. Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there is one thing we must understand: what we have here are not proposals for tax exemptions for some rich countries at the centre of Europe, such as Luxembourg, for example, which would seriously undermine the balance of the internal market, which would create economic imbalances, and even a concentration of economic activity that in fact benefits no one. What we have here are one-off measures intended to support industries and small-scale activities which would otherwise not survive. We cannot compare the survival of small rum producers in the Canaries with the situation of sugar in the European Union, which is a cartel providing massive profits for a industry that is highly protected and which the Commission is not able – or willing – to end. In fact, it is doing the opposite. We saw proof of this here only yesterday. I therefore call on all my fellow Members resolutely to support the proposal submitted by Sérgio Marques.

Political group: PSE
I would like Mr Kinnock to elaborate on his last answer and just to confirm, in the light of the very extensive organisational reforms, and all that is implied in some of the changes of responsibility, out-sourcing, and the new technology, whether he is really satisfied that the Berlaymont is going to be the appropriate home for the new re-focused Commission. Alongside that, I wonder if I might invite him, given that yesterday this Parliament finally received formally the package for the reform of the Staff Regulations, to say what his expectations are in terms of our scrutiny of this very important package given that it is of course tied in with a number of important considerations, such as the pay package, 'le méthode', and what he would like to see the Parliament do in terms of timing and other work on this important package.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the first phase of the internal market is drawing to a close, marking the end of monopolies and the opening up of national markets to competition. Today we are debating the options for the second phase. The question has been raised, and it is more than a question, it is a choice. Mr van Velzen was one of many who said that our aim is a great pan-European market. I concur. Today, however, we are discussing the options of ‘how’ to achieve this, and there is a difference between choosing to achieve genuine and sustainable competition, as in a traditional sector – which is what Mr Brunetta advocates – and what we would like, which is different; i.e. public regulation of networks in Europe, with competing services but alongside the development of a universal service, and, where necessary, possible sharing of infrastructure. What is at stake, therefore, is the debate on how the market will be regulated rather than the objective of creating a pan-European market. We believe that the option being considered is of dubious value; i.e. to have national regulation of the telecommunications market and common rules on genuine competition on a Community level. It is unsound, because, currently, national regulation means every man for himself. All the Members of this House have criticised the problems of allocating radio frequencies, the extreme variations in licence costs, the excessive debts of some of the operators, and so there may be risks of the telephone market crashing just as the property market crashed a while back. Therefore, we are not favouring indiscriminate national regulation but we are in favour of the rules of competition, even if, for example, the Commission has tried to move towards the concept of a relevant market, which is not supported by the Council and we have to deal with – and the Commission, perhaps, is not moving in this direction – issues on development of a universal service, problems with investment savings and on sharing of the networks so as to be able to reduce costs. We would therefore advocate – and I personally would advocate – a system of European regulators, basically to create a pan-European market, but we come up against the European framework of references and rules, and I believe that we are going to have to look more closely into this, because the solution that we currently have is an absolute hybrid, I must stress this. The proposed package, which will result from all these negotiations, cannot be seen as set in stone. Despite the efforts some have made, it is another regulatory nightmare. That is why I believe that we need to widen the public debate on the action plan that you are outlining, by involving civil societies to a much greater extent in order to reach agreement.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in Europe, we have been familiar with the phenomenon of the mobility of students and lecturers in higher education for a long time. Such mobility greatly contributes to mutual understanding within Europe. It is truly the shop floor on which understanding is shared. The Commission is now calling for this process to be extended and intensified so as to include third countries. In her thorough report, Mrs De Sarnez makes the correct assumption that high-quality higher education is required. That the European Credit Transfer System must be improved and promoted in this respect goes without saying. As does the fact that closer cooperation with third countries also requires the development of new cooperation programmes in higher education. The EU has already set up cooperation programmes with America and with Canada, but I should like to fight for cooperation in the field of higher education with the developing countries. According to the Commission, one of the objectives of cooperation with third countries is to train highly qualified people. This is certainly very important for developing countries. The mobility of people and ideas has an extremely stimulating effect on all participating institutions within and outside Europe. Education in general is the best way of eradicating poverty in the world, and this certainly applies to developing countries. Strict exchange arrangements will be needed to stave off a brain drain. I would therefore call on the Commission, in its incentives policy, to pay extra attention to cooperation in the field of higher education A second point I should like to bring up is the use of e-learning. For many universities, especially in Developing Countries, it is not always financially possible to fund extensive exchange programmes. Precisely for them, the use of e-learning is extremely important, with a view both to gathering knowledge and to spreading their own knowledge. The Commission should therefore pay extra attention to this aspect in its policy in the field of development cooperation. IN THE CHAIR: MR COLOM I NAVALVice-President

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, we are always complaining and regretting – rightly in my opinion – that the European Union does not speak with one voice on the international stage. Despite what our colleague has just said, I think that on this occasion there is more than sufficient reason to congratulate ourselves on the fact that the European Union has unanimously presented a resolution to the United Nations requesting a moratorium on the death penalty. It is sad that this initiative has not come to fruition and we hope that it will do so during this legislature. What I would like to say, Mr President, is that we have done this because we are convinced that everybody has the unalienable right to the respect for life and this right cannot go unrecognised or be violated. We have all seen the horrendous pictures of the last death sentence passed by the Florida Court and it will therefore not surprise any of you that the first person to appear in the text of the joint resolution should be the Spanish – and hence European Union – citizen, Joaquín José Martínez, whose sentence we ask to be reviewed and whose death sentence we ask to be suspended. In this case there has been a series of coincidences which have inspired an enthusiastic solidarity movement in our country in which the Government, all the political parties and the rest of society have taken part. I would like to say that there have been a whole series of irregularities in the trial and it appears that the defence lawyer has not fulfilled his commitments. However, Mr President, what is serious – and his case is serious enough as it is – are not the conditions of this trial, nor the fact that the United States holds the tragic and regrettable record for executing people who are later proved to be innocent. What is most tragic and regrettable is the fact that the death penalty exists at all. I therefore believe, Mr President, that as a European Parliament we have to show, in this and all other similar cases, a firm and resolute commitment to the right to life, as we have done in this joint resolution.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, I think we would all agree that, if we are to run the Community properly, we need a high-quality statistical base within the Community and the applicant countries. There has been a broad welcome in the House for this proposal and the apparent ability to give priority to the revenue actually collected rather than the more notional contributions which may be due. This is certainly a step forward. It seems logical to use the revenue collected as the basis for determining the actual percentage deficit. So far as the transition period is concerned, many of us will have sympathy with the need for some form of transition because, clearly, if you amend the regulations in such a way that you move from a system which is being used over a long period of time to a completely new system some time will be required. However, I hope that the countries of the Union will not use this as an excuse, if it is passed, but seek to implement the new system as rapidly as they can – in other words, two years should be regarded as an exception and as a maximum rather than as the normal ration for the job. On the treatment of taxes and social contributions, I agree with the rapporteur that this is a relevant way of doing the calculations and that we should take a favourable view of the criteria which the Commission intends to set because of the way in which priority is given. Overall, this is a useful step forward. I welcome the commitment of the Commission. I hope that we can work together and see this translated into Community law with suitable adjustments as soon as possible.

Political group: PSE