GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I too wish to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Miguélez Ramos, for this excellent report. She has raised important questions and also taken the proposals of others into account. Our group supports the Commission’s proposal and, furthermore, the rapporteur’s view regarding the creation of a proper legal basis for verifying nomenclature. The issue is also a timely one, as the applicant countries are receiving guidelines for verifying territorial classification in their own countries. With the present NUTS classification system one problem is that classifications by country have shaped themselves according to each country’s own needs and traditions. One cause for criticism is the fact that the land area of regions has not been used as a basis for statistics. Units vary in size and, for example, a low population density or gradual depopulation are overlooked. The aims of the regulation regarding clear rules, comparability and impartiality deserve support. It is also important to determine rules for dealing with amendments and to ensure that the NUTS classification does not change too often. We would ask you to support our group’s amendment, whereby islands and the outermost regions are added to the Subparagraph of Article 3 (4) in order to avoid unnecessary reclassification. Our group stresses the importance of also having flexibility in classification so that administrative factors and, for example, geographical, social and economic circumstances will be taken into consideration as appropriate. Our group supports the rapporteur’s opinion that the Commission should investigate the inclusion of a new level NUTS 4 in the regulation. The goal relating to the comparative classification of territories will be difficult to achieve, and will take time. It is essential, however, that we establish a fair classification, which will help to allocate the right actions to the right areas.

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, everyone talks about everything, and no one – or almost no one – sets a limit upon the number of tasks. Most Members add further dimensions. More and more tasks and policy areas are given priority. In the end, almost nothing is given priority and, instead, there is just a long repetition of politically correct words and phrases, while Europe all but stands still. Instead, there is a need to focus on bringing about the internal market; to put pressure on the Member States to implement EC legislation and remove the obstacles to this; to reduce taxes for companies and make rigid labour markets more flexible; and to have done with large numbers of tasks and rules that are unnecessary for promoting growth. There is a need to focus upon education, research, development, competition and small businesses. At the same time, more stringent monitoring of state subsidies is required, as well as a review of the rules governing regional aid. Confidence in the European business climate is undermined by short-sighted financial aid that is hostile to development, causes distortion and hampers competition. Who will dare, or want, to invest if, by doing so, there is a danger of seeing the whole basis of their enterprise swept away because a similar factory is being set up with EU subsidies in a neighbouring country? These matters must be reviewed, the number of tasks selectively reduced, and action taken. We do not need any more fine-sounding declarations. They are nice to listen to, but it is action that is now required.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, I believe Mr Belder has just hit the nail on the head. Of course it is positive that this trial is now actually about to take place. It is important for Cambodia to deal with the ghosts from the past which are still haunting the country. However, we are not wild about what is about to happen there. It is a matter of better some of a pudding than none of a pie. We cannot do much else other than go along with it. Cambodia’s parliament has given its consent. Who are we then to criticise what is happening now, but we do have grave doubts about the way in which this has been organised. Firstly, every court in Cambodia will have difficulty guaranteeing its own neutrality. In this case, the Cambodian judges will be appointed by the Cambodian Supreme Council of Magistracy, which is ruled by the governing party. How neutral can those judges be? It is, of course, possible to appoint international judges, and they will certainly play a role in this, but will this role be so manifest that it will be clear to the Khmer Rouge victims that the judgments passed will actually be neutral and do justice to the situation as it was then? It is, of course, extremely odd that people such as Mr Ieng Sary, who played a key role under Pol Pot, have already been released from the trial because the Prime Minister dismissed them from that trial, and that was not done by a court of justice but by Mr Hun Sen. We are pleased that this trial is now going to take place, but we will monitor its progress with considerable suspicion. We will only be able to reach a conclusion as to whether what is happening here is a positive step once the court cases are over. We therefore hope things will go well, but we have major doubts.

Political group: ELDR
It is good that the Council common position already incorporates some of the amendments approved by the European Parliament. However, as proposed by the rapporteur, the amendments approved at first reading but not accepted by the Council must now be included. Following the approval of the Biosafety Protocol in Montreal in January 2000, we must take further steps to protect the rights of consumers and to re-establish their confidence. We therefore support the amendments which aim to include in the directive the ban on the release of GMOs containing antibiotic resistance markers, even for the purposes of research, and the requirement imposed on the Commission and Member States that no GMO and/or products thereof should leave the territory of the European Union without the prior informed consent of the importing country. We also support the defence of total environmental liability as it is unacceptable not to force companies in the biotechnology sector to take the necessary measures to protect human health and minimise environmental risks. Finally, when consenting to a deliberate release, Member States and the Commission must ensure that measures are taken to prevent gene-transfer from GMOs to other organisms in the environment.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President-in-Office, I should first of all like to express my greatest respect for the difficult task that your Presidency has ahead of it. We all realise how difficult it will be to carry the Intergovernmental Conference through to a successful conclusion, given that it foundered in Brussels only a few weeks ago. Therefore, the message we should like you to pass on to all the governments in Europe is both simple and clear: accept the responsibility for giving Europe a constitution before the European elections. It is increasingly true that what we do is closely linked to how we function: you must strive to overcome the disputes that have led to this breakdown, for the sake of the greater good. The fact that the Convention succeeded in drawing up a constitutional text that was also widely supported by this Parliament shows that political and geographical differences are not an insurmountable obstacle. You must vigorously oppose the antihistorical conflict between national interests and Europe, because that is a disease that can rot away the strongest reasons for our staying together. One last question, Mr President-in-Office: in the concluding debate of the Italian term of office, Mr Berlusconi mentioned an agreement reached in the IGC on 85 points and an acquis, which would leave just one point unsettled. Can you please tell us, Mr President-in-Office, what exactly the Italian Presidency has passed on to you? I am asking because Parliament has so far been asking the Council about this in vain.

Political group: PSE
Congratulations! Mr Gahrton’s report is an excellent, balanced report calling for a greater European Union presence in a bridge area between Asia and Europe. The southern Caucasus could become a calvary but it could also remain a powder keg. Behind the essentially peaceful facade, tensions are rising which could explode given the right political situation. It would therefore be as well to play down the age-old disputes between the Turks and the Armenians. We hope that paragraph 15, upon which we are going to vote tomorrow, which is in line with the policies of many international bodies, will be a useful step in this direction. If the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy’s proposal is endorsed by the majority, we will henceforth be able to start to look towards the future and leave the past behind. In addition to the ethical and political issues, major economic interests are at play in the region: there is controversy regarding the exploitation of the Caspian Sea and the routes for the oil pipelines are still provisional; there is the potential for great pressure to be put on Russian policy, which applies different criteria for each of the three countries and in respect of the ethnic minority too. It would appear that the OSCE Minsk Group is exploring a fresh approach to the compromise for Nagorno-Karabakh and the various occupied territories behind closed doors. Let us hope so! Mr Gahrton is right to call for a European Union special envoy to be appointed for the southern Caucasus. A conference between the countries of the southern Caucasus and the European Union could also yield results and make it clear whether it would be better to adopt the ‘step-by-step’ method or an overall solution.

Political group: PSE
Madam President, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, I should like to state that we support Mr Santini’s proposal, as adopted by the committee. The purpose of the directive is to give more content to EU citizenship and to increase people’s freedom of movement within the Community. The proposal would mean a consolidation of the present multiplicity of regulations, directives and judgments in this area. In this way, the state of the law would become clearer and less ambiguous. Clear legislation would, at the same time, mean that it would be easier to overcome many of the practical obstacles to people’s freedom of movement that still exist. The Group fully supports the principle of non-discrimination whereby EU citizens from other Member States are, as far as possible, treated according to the same rules as citizens of one’s own country. This directive is a step in the right direction. We also, however, support the progressive definition of the family incorporated into the proposal. On a general note, I should like to state straight away that the intention behind the proposal is not to lay down a definition of the family. The intention is, quite basically, to preserve family unity. The discussion surrounding the definition of the family ought not therefore to distract attention from the purpose of the proposal and the positive consequences of the directive’s being adopted, namely a strengthening of the basis of the rule governing freedom of movement, an increase in the mobility of the labour force and, of course, the preservation of family unity.

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, Laeken has gone better than Nice did last year, and for that the Belgian Presidency is to be thanked, yet the positive outcome has to do with another matter on which Laeken was to give a decision. Nothing had been decided by last weekend on the central topic of 'The future of the Union'; quite rightly, only questions had been asked about it. Even a cursory analysis of the questions, though, shows that some of them are not questions at all, such as the rhetorical question as to whether it would contribute to greater transparency if the sessions of the Council – at any rate in its legislative capacity – were to be in public. Now, it goes without saying that legislative Council sessions must be thrown open, but why did something so obvious not become legally binding at Maastricht or Amsterdam or, at the latest, at Nice? Another question in the catalogue of Laeken declarations makes me similarly pensive. We have to consider whether the Charter of Fundamental Rights should be incorporated into the Basic Treaty and whether the European Community should accede to the European Convention on Human Rights. Does this mean that the results of the last Convention are really nothing more than an option? I hope not. I take an even more critical view of questions in the Declaration which were not even put at Laeken. The question arises for me, as an elected representative from a medium-sized state, how the Convention will ensure that the big states will not dominate in the future. There has, unfortunately, been a very definite reason for these questions to be asked in recent weeks, and let nobody believe that there will be any less hankering after top-down management in a future Europe of nineteen small and medium-sized States and a small group of large and very large ones. One last point in the Laeken Declaration prompts me to vehement criticism here and now. The less than impressive, indeed uncaring, way in which the Council's General Secretariat handled the Convention on Fundamental Rights last time gives little hope for anything good from the Constitutional Convention. I can only hope that the Council's bureaucracy will prove us wrong by providing us with a quite outstanding service. (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, my thoughts go automatically to the debate we held here about five years ago, when the Commission at the time bombastically announced the EU’s new Mediterranean policy. Today, we all agree that most of what was announced then has not been achieved. The reason behind those poor results is a combination of a lack of political will on the one hand, and lack of money on the other. I think we should place greater emphasis on Mediterranean policy, based on the diptych of democracy and development. Democracy in the countries of the southern and eastern Mediterranean because that will help us to understand one another, and development because, apart from anything else, development will reduce the flood of immigrants we have and will continue to have in years to come. The Council and the Commission, then, must make every possible effort to reanimate the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership agreed at the Barcelona Conference. It is also important to give new impetus to the MEDA programmes and at the same time to strengthen programmes such as MEDA-Democracy, Euromed-Audiovisual, and sub-regional training programmes for journalists. Parliament has also long been proposing the implementation of a programme of interregional and transnational cooperation aimed, by effective financial and systematic coordination of the INTERREG and MEDA programmes, at achieving effective economic and social integration of the participating countries and regions on both sides of the Mediterranean. I would also like to dwell on another issue which may not seem important to you, but which is important to me personally. I think that an important and catalytic role in ensuring the successful outcome of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership must be played by the Mediterranean islands, such as Malta, Cyprus and Crete, as the middle ground between the two sides of the Mediterranean. Since those islands have traditional links with both sides, they can be the centres of that cooperation and I think we ought to direct many programmes in the context of MEDA towards that.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, the Charter is a milestone on the road that leads to real EU citizenship, and it also sets down in writing that it is people, rather than the market or power, who should be at the heart of European politics, and so I join with all those who have said that these rights must not exist only on paper. They must also become binding. Congratulations to the Commissioner and the rapporteur on their intention that the Charter should form part of the constitutional treaty. I agree that it should not be mentioned only in the Preamble, but that the Charter should form the first chapter of the constitution. We are always saying that this constitution should be able to be read in schools. This Charter is wonderfully readable; it would make a fine preface for a European constitution, and its reflection of Europe's values leads me to believe that it should actually be printed in its entirety. My second train of thought leads me to the view that the Charter should be incorporated without any changes being made to it. It was the subject of really lengthy discussion in the first Convention, and I cannot see any reason to amend it again. At most, there might be a need for editorial adjustments to the transversal articles, but not substantial alterations. They contain everything on the Charter's scope, and do not need to be duplicated and made more complicated. Our rapporteur is to be thanked for his excellent report, which will without doubt become an important document for the Convention.

Political group: PSE
Could I raise an issue in advance of Question Time next week. At the last plenary session I tabled a question to the Council, in time and in full accordance with the Rules, yet the Presidency refused to answer the question because they had not received all language translations. I do not see why I should be penalised if all language translations are not available, and I would ask you to give a ruling, if not today, subsequently, that when a Member of Parliament tables a question in full accordance with the Rules, they are entitled to an answer at the appropriate time.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, stability and growth are objectives of economic activity that everyone wants, whichever party or group in the European Parliament they belong to. However, when it comes to defining these concepts and in particular when it comes to how we should achieve these objectives, then there are considerable differences between us. A purely fiscal interpretation will not help us to solve the present problems, which are reflected in falling economic growth and consistently high unemployment. The market economy as an economic concept is fine, but it is unacceptable as a social policy tool. Or to put it another way, the market can and should regulate the economy, but not society. We see the priority as being not a supply-oriented economic policy, but a demand-oriented one. We do not believe that liberalisation is a panacea. We need not only commercial competition, but also a linkage with economic and social criteria, in order to achieve the highest possible level of social security, sustainability and justice. Balancing budgets is fine, but not at any price. In contrast to the President-in-Office, I wish to call for an anticyclical economic policy. In times of recession, increasing public expenditure on investment in new capacity and in education and training are essential. We have the euro area, but we do not have a European economic, fiscal and social policy. That cannot work. It is not just a matter of achieving price stability alone, which is the ECB's remit, we also need to achieve socio-economic stability. A more flexible approach to the existing convergence criteria will not solve the problem, it will just shift the burden to those who meet the criteria. We need a new version that takes into account additional parameters such as the employment rate, the value-added ratio and the investment ratio, because these indicators reflect economic strength and development.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Thank you for your answer. I should like to ask the following supplementary question. How major and extensive does the Council consider this problem to be, and how seriously does the Council view the fact that transport companies organise travel to the EU for persons without valid visa and identity papers?

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, despite the tragic events of 11 September, the tourism industry is alive and well. In fact, it is even enjoying a phase of permanent expansion at European and global level. As an economic sector, the tourism industry accounts for 5% of jobs in the European Union. The lion’s share of the activities and of employment is generated by some 2 million small and medium-sized businesses, together making up some 8 million people. Furthermore, this employment is spread across different service sectors, such as transport and the hotel trade. Small and medium-sized businesses are therefore clearly the driving force behind, and platform for, European tourism. This is why the proposed actions must be coupled with actions in the framework of the multi-annual programme for small and medium-sized businesses. To the question whether Community tourism policy should be developed for the tourism industry, the answer remains negative, at least for the time being. This does not detract from the fact that tourism policy must be coordinated more effectively and better managed. Tourism policy often gives a fragmented and chaotic impression. This is why actions in the field of harmonisation of information, the establishment of harmonised labels and networking must be strongly encouraged. In addition, the Commission’s initiative to establish an annual, European tourism forum at which the sector itself can set its priorities, receives our full support. In short, closer cooperation between all parties involved in order to make tourism more competitive and sustainable, appears to be a priority.

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, as rapporteur, I would not like to see any ambiguity left about one section in the decision-making process. I should therefore like to urge you to consider complying with the EPP's request and permitting, at this stage, an oral vote on point 16. I appreciate that you would then have to go back on a decision, but I should nevertheless like to urge you to treat this report in such a way as to leave no misunderstanding or uncertainty on this matter at all. I would therefore make an urgent appeal to you now to honour the request. (Applause)

Political group: ELDR