GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this is a new instrument and it accords with Article 6 of the Treaty of Amsterdam, which concerns the integration of environmental policies into other areas. It is a delicate flower and we all want it to be a success. I also want it to be well received by my electorate back home. Hence I sometimes ask myself the questions that they ask themselves. When I look at the Council’s proposal, I assume that people will ask themselves this: how can the EU introduce an assessment regime that excludes the plans and projects financed by the European Union itself? This is completely unacceptable, and that is precisely how I see it. The scope of application must be extended to include areas that are financed by the European Union. Secondly, the people of Germany, in particular, may well ask themselves why the assessments are to be carried out at state level, national level, regional administration level, and at local level, which will drag the procedures out. This is indefensible in my view. It is the real issues that count, not having the same thing assessed at every level. Therefore we must make it clear that a duplication of effort must be avoided. Accordingly, Guido Sacconi’s Amendment No 31 has my unequivocal support. A third question the people may ask themselves is this: why is nothing happening now that an assessment has taken place which may have raised certain issues? Therefore we must make it clear that the regulation is binding. We certainly cannot have a situation where an assessment is carried out and the findings are then filed away, never to be seen again. We need a binding commitment to the effect that any findings will be acted on. Therefore, I emphatically support Amendments Nos 17 and 18, which provide for us to make the transposition of environmental protection measures following assessment a little more binding in nature. With this in mind, I wish Mrs Schörling’s report every success.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, Commissioner, in company with Mr Hernández Mollar – whom I would like to thank for his enthusiastic support for Amendment No 15, tabled by myself – I feel that this document must be rejected if the 's amendments are not incorporated. I support Amendment No 14, tabled by Mr Tannock, which upholds the free movement of the heirs to the Italian and Greek thrones and supports the monarchy. Personally, in tabling Amendment No 15, I support the pensioners, for although the measure facilitates the movement of non-EU citizens, it does not remove the difficulties facing its own citizens, particularly its disabled citizens, who wish to travel within Europe. At Bergamo Orio al Serio airport, as I was leaving to come to Strasbourg, I met a pensioner – a very old lady who is 80 years old – who told me that she wanted to go to Paris to visit her daughter but that she could not do so because she would lose her Italian State pension which is her only means of support. Another person, who is totally handicapped, said that they wanted to go to London but that they could not do so because they would have lost their pension. Yet another person, who is disabled – in a wheelchair, no less – told me that he would have liked to go and visit his brother but that in doing so he would have lost his incapacity allowance. Therefore, our goal must be to bring about the free movement of pensioners and disabled citizens in Europe.

Political group: PPE-DE
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as we all know, the Treaty of Amsterdam gives every citizen of the Union a fundamental individual right to move and reside freely within the territory of the Member States, regardless of whether or not he or she exercises an economic activity. This right is also enshrined in the European Union’s Charter of Fundamental Rights. What this means, however, is that the Union’s citizens must be free to move between the various Member States, just as the nationals of one Member State move or change residence within their own territory. We all acknowledge, however, that there are still many barriers to exercising this fundamental right – a situation confirmed by numerous rulings of the Court of Justice on this matter. This is why it is crucial that this directive should be adopted as swiftly as possible, so as to simplify the exercise of the right to move freely. I thus support the recommendation of the rapporteur, Giacomo Santini, whom I wish to congratulate on his excellent work, to adopt this position in its current form. It encompasses many of the amendments tabled by the European Parliament at first reading and is generally well balanced. Furthermore, any new amendment would mean reopening negotiations and would undermine the crucial need for this directive to be adopted, especially given the closeness of enlargement. I should like to emphasise the major proposals, which I believe to be most important. The first of these is to reduce administrative formalities to the bare necessities; secondly, the right to move freely without the need for any formalities for a period of three months; thirdly, to introduce the permanent right of residence after four years of continuous residency in the reception Member State; fourthly, to impose limits on a State’s power to refuse or revoke the right of residence for a Union citizen on the grounds of security or public order; my fifth and last point concerns the definition of the concept of family, I would like to emphasise that harmonising residency requirements for Union citizens must never lead to changes being imposed on Member State legislation and on their own definitions of the family status. The Treaty excludes the right to live as a family from the sphere of Union competence, because this is a matter for national competence.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, people cannot be vaccinated against new diseases in advance. They can also not be healed with medicines afterwards. There are only three ways of limiting the consequences. The first is to limit the chance of infection. The second is to reinforce and accelerate scientific research into preventing and fighting such diseases. The third is to offer help to those with the disease so as to increase their chances of survival. In the fight against the advance of SARS, only this third opportunity is being paid full attention. Hospitals are being prepared to ensure that they have quarantine rooms and breathing equipment available. It is a good thing that we are already taking on board the possibility that this infection could gain a significant foothold in Europe, but it looks as if this is as far as we are going. The second method is not being given much thought. In the past, various Member States of the European Union have cut back on scientific research into new diseases. Today’s experts are interested volunteers who have been taken away from other medical and biological research. That must change if we are to be able to effectively fight and eradicate new diseases in the short term. Our biggest shortcomings relate to the first method; containing the spread on a global scale. People from South-East Asia can quickly export SARS over great distances because of international air travel. Checks on incoming traffic at Schiphol Airport in the Netherlands, Europe’s fifth biggest airport, seem to be minimal. Passengers arriving from South-East Asia are allowed to just pass straight through. It is actually a miracle that more people have not been infected in Europe. Following a declaration by the European Commission, I asked on 7 April for action to be taken against the risks posed by incoming air traffic, involving a previously announced compulsory period of quarantine for people at risk of infection if necessary. I am surprised that on 6 May, after consultation with the World Health Organisation, the Council decided not to do this and to rely instead on checks in the country of departure and written declarations by interested parties. Let us avoid a situation in which we find out afterwards that we failed seriously in our attempts to keep this disease out of our countries, and let us be pleased with our free press which, unlike in China, informed us in good time.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, Commissioner, Mrs Corbey, thank you for the work you have put in on this report. I would very much like to start by asking you, Commissioner, why you have brought before Parliament a report on the implementation of the packaging directive when the revision of the Packaging Regulations is already before us. I would very much like to know if there is a strategy for this, whether you need more time for a new debate on strategy and whether you are in the process of moving over from a product policy to a materials policy. As I now observe, that is a vain labour of love, as you are now applying yourself to other things. You are right, Mrs Corbey, to say that packaging waste is increasing, and so it is entirely right and proper for us to concern ourselves with these Packaging Regulations and with those to be enacted in the future. I simply think that we must first discuss what has actually been done by the Member States. Were the old Packaging Regulations from the Nineties right, or did we make mistakes? Did we rightly see how things would turn out today? Is there not a multitude of loopholes? As you mentioned, databases are largely lacking. Has transposition into national law really taken place punctually and in the way we intend, and is the hierarchy envisaged by the Packaging Regulations actually as flexible as we need it to be in the future? I do not believe so. Yet we must, now that the Commission has imposed on us this report on implementation, concentrate on these important matters. It is unfortunately not our present task to consider what quotas have to be set for landfill dumping, recycling, and so on. Let me make clear that I regret that. There are a lot of other points I would like to make. Having lost the first minutes, though, I shall admit defeat and carry on debating in the next round.

Political group: PPE-DE
Madam President, President-in-Office, Commissioner, the spiralling level of violence in the Middle East blinds us to the fact that it was not so very long ago that, instead of the current feelings of despair, there was optimism and hope that a permanent peace could be achieved. Unfortunately these hopes were to be cruelly shattered and it is hard to forget that the present Intifada arose directly from the unnecessary and provocative visit by Mr Sharon to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. However, nothing justified the subsequent acts of terrorism by either side, and in the current highly charged emotional situation, with the areas of conflict so widespread, it is very difficult to see a cease-fire emerging. It is clear that the only way of breaking the current deadlock is through the intervention of a third party. The only feasible third party would be a team of international observers. We know this is acceptable to the United Nations and the Palestinians, but regrettably it has been rejected by the Israelis. The United States has endorsed the Israeli position. Regrettably its blind allegiance is paradoxically damaging to Israel's cause. Instead of being a puppet of the Israelis, the US should be independent and use its influence to pressurise them to end their violence, just as we, in the EU, must use our influence with the Palestinians to do likewise. If both we and the US work together in common cause, there is just a possibility that we could halt the continuing slide into regional conflict and restore peace negotiations once again on the basis of the Mitchell recommendations. That should continue to be our primary objective.

Political group: PPE-DE
I was in my car - a Renault Scenic - taking a pleasure trip in the company of Miss Italy, that is the most beautiful woman in Italy, Miss France, that is the most beautiful woman in France, and Miss Spain, the most beautiful woman in Spain. We were going to Madrid, where I took part recently in a meeting of the Group of the European People’s Party , for a night on the town alla spagnola. However, Mr President, at the height of the evening, we ran out of petrol. Again, I thought: ‘a bit of a problem this lack of petrol and petroleum. What would have happened to the European Union if we had not thought - with the Karlsson report - of securing petroleum supply? There would have been a real problem!’ As a result, I voted for the motion.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, Commissioner, the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party is against the patenting of human genes as such, something we also stated in 1998 when Parliament adopted the Directive on the legal protection of biotechnological inventions. However, we believe that the directive does not allow patents for genes as such, if they do not contain an invention, and we supported the directive when it was adopted. We believe that the fact that, in a debate on topical and urgent subjects, we are now discussing a resolution on certain patents constitutes an abuse. We have therefore not signed the common resolution. Although we have a Temporary Committee on Human Genetics, where the question of patents constitutes one of the most important issues, the issue of patents is being brought up here so that a general position might be adopted on the matter, and I would like to repeat that this is very wrong. We really believe that this is an abuse. There have been no formal opportunities to raise objections, but we believe that Parliament’s rules should be changed. The fact that just a few people are to discuss the issue quickly here is therefore very wrong. We also believe that the draft resolution is not entirely correct. The patent applications which exist, and I have a summary of them here, expressly state that they apply to methods and not to genes as such. You are attempting to give the impression that the European Patent Office is now about to approve patents on human genes, and this is not the case. However, there is one point on which we can agree with those who drew up the proposal, and that is that in certain respects the patents are two ‘broad’. This means that we should review issues such as compulsory licences with an eye to research and public health. Unfortunately, this is not something that can be dealt with at Community level, but is the responsibility of the Member States. I hope that we can discuss the issue of licences in peace and quiet in the Committee on Human Genetics. We shall not be able to support the resolution.

Political group: ELDR
Commissioner, Mr President, the Commissioner’s statement was more concerned with SMEs than with the concerns of the Michelin employees represented here. I was born in Clermont Ferrand and live there still, Michelin’s birthplace and headquarters, and it is for this reason, amongst others, that they have been my guests here on several occasions. The concomitant announcements of the axing of 7,500 jobs, the enormous increase in its profits, and the closure of the Wolbert-Michelin factory at Soissons, described as a PR mistake by the company’s directors, show to what extent cynicism and lack of respect are the driving forces behind this multinational’s industrial strategy. Other identical examples are still fresh in our memory, Renault Vilvorde, the French banking system and the large distribution companies, and let us not forget Daewoo. All these companies who implement redundancy plans year after year have benefited from European and national subsidies without at any time being held accountable for the way in which they use those funds. I think that our institution is duty-bound to be involved with the concerns of millions of Europeans who live in unemployment or in the fear of becoming unemployed. We must therefore be firm and clear on three points. We must work out whether the allocation of sums to large companies will result, above all else, in guaranteeing the permanence of jobs. On the eve of the opening of the WTO negotiations, we must remind everyone that any business strategy, including that of multinationals, must take the human figures into account, in the same way as the economic and financial figures, so that millions of European employees may keep their jobs and their dignity. Finally, at a time when a European-wide Michelin works committee has just come into being, Community legislation must be amended so that employees, or their representatives, who are concerned at the plans for collective redundancy on economic grounds can take their case to the competent local court, without waiting for the redundancy to be announced, and challenge the grounds for the decision. This is the thinking behind the resolution that we are proposing and it is only if these conditions are met that Europe will maintain its political role whilst facilitating the truly sustainable economic development of businesses and protecting the rights of employees who are, let us never forget, the Union’s lifeblood.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, Mr Arvidsson, I fully appreciate the work which you have done on this report. I would like to concentrate here on the application of the precautionary principle and on the difficulties in this case of dealing with an issue on which scientific considerations are confused and mixed up with emotional considerations, as well as a long history of disagreements between the industry of PVC and its derivatives and the environmental lobby, which, of course, is also deeply involved with this issue of phthalates. We are talking about risks to children’s health. This is of interest to all of us, certainly. However, we must not forget that we are also talking, with reasonable certainty, about the harmful effects of six phthalates, and also, with a degree of uncertainty, of the other substances belonging to this group. To ban all of them, as a precaution, may not be a good decision since this may mean abandoning an area of research which is being pursued at the moment, in order to opt for substitutes whose harmful effects we know even less about. In this respect, there is one good example: four years ago, given the opinion that silicon implants may be carcinogenic, several countries adopted an alternative substance for their manufacture based on soya oil. A few days ago the United Kingdom banned these implants and is gratuitously withdrawing existing stocks, having discovered that they are carcinogenic. The social and health cost of a hasty decision may be medically and economically irreparable. The scientific evidence demanded in Amendments Nos 11, 13 and 24 seem to me to be absolutely necessary in any event, but especially in the case of this type of issue where lives are at stake and where we are likely to punish or benefit certain production sectors.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, Mrs Haug’s report, which is being discussed, concerns a technical alteration that would provide a more accurate basis for collecting VAT-based contributions. I would like to thank the rapporteur for her excellent work. The collection system for contributions is a complicated political game that results in Member States attempting to maximise their own benefits and minimise what they pay out. Although the size of EU contributions is determined as a share of GNP the structure of the contribution is very different from one country to the next. In Member States where there are large ports revenue from customs duty is considerable and, for that reason, the amount of duty paid in contributions is substantial. In Berlin there was a lengthy dispute regarding contributions. As a result, EU financing is becoming more dependent on fourth resources, i.e., direct transfers of funds out of national parliaments’ budgets. The increase in portage from 10% to 25% was a clear concession to the countries with large ports. The resulting gap in the EU budget is to be bridged by increasing the GNP share. The other change is the progressive reduction in VAT-based contributions, which will also increase the GNP share. This is leading to a situation where EU contributions are becoming tied more than ever to budget transfers from individual Member States and gross national earnings, which must now probably be considered only fair. Only the question of the reduction in contributions made by the United Kingdom will remain open in the future. In the future enlargement will wreak havoc on the EU budget. There are a hundred million inhabitants in the new Member States, representing only 4% of GNP, however. As a result, the contributions from the old Member States will clearly increase from what they are now, and may even double. In any future decisions taken we must ensure that a rise in contributions does not jeopardise development in the old Member States, especially in the matter of increased regional and social inequality.

Political group: ELDR
I think there is some muddle. The amendment is not the text you read out, Madam President. The amendment concerned involves removing some words. What we have to do is make a decision as to whether or not these words are to be removed. That is the amendment. And the second part, is the sentence that follows on and not the sentence which was read out. What we are voting on, then, is whether to remove or keep these words.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the legislative proposal we are now discussing, whose content is to be welcomed, goes some way towards meeting the need to combat the phenomenon of accidents at work caused by high falls from ladders and scaffolding. This phenomenon is, unfortunately, all too common throughout the European Union. We cannot repeat often enough the huge number of accidents that occur: according to information supplied by the Commission, around 500 000 falls from a height occur every year, 300 000 of which cause more than three days’ absence from work. Furthermore, of this total number, around 40 000 serious accidents are recorded and around 1 000 deaths. In most cases, these accidents are caused by the improper use of scaffolding and ladders. In this area, as in other areas in the social sphere, we need to encourage the adoption of measures and common legislation to encourage the setting of standards and a levelling upwards, which would represent added-value for all of the Member States. I am sure that, in my country, where this type of accident has reached frightening proportions, this directive will make a valuable contribution to preventing them. It will also provide an incentive to the competent national authorities to define stricter and more rigorous rules on the use of such work equipment. Lastly, I wish to emphasise the positive manner in which the Council has worked in close cooperation with Parliament on this matter. Although we sometimes tend to criticise the positions adopted by the Council, we should give praise where praise is due.

Political group: PPE-DE