GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to thank the European Parliament delegation in the Convention and the President of the Convention, Mr Roman Herzog, for their committed work. The drafting of a European Charter of Fundamental Rights is an important and necessary step towards a Europe which is close to the people. Some people think that it is possible to create an internal market in Europe without agreeing on fundamental values and principles. The majority of the European Parliament has never supported this view. For example, with the directive on patenting biotechnological inventions – which was, of course, supposed to be primarily an internal market directive – we did not allow this directive to be adopted without fundamental ethical principles being enshrined in it, and without particular techniques which offend against human dignity being prohibited from patenting. Where modern genetic engineering is concerned, in particular, this was an important step towards establishing common values in Europe. The Charter is a further – certainly much more important – step. Many parts of the draft which we have before us are excellent. But the draft is worth improving precisely in respect of the protection of human dignity and the protection against its abuse by modern technologies. The wording is imprecise in some places, and I am particularly concerned that Article 3 of the draft Charter only prohibits the reproductive cloning of human beings. This can be interpreted as a step backwards compared with previous European legislation. In the directive on patenting biotechnological inventions, the cloning of human beings is prohibited as a whole, Commissioner Prodi, because it offends common decency and law and order – so it is not only the patent that is prohibited; the technique is too. Commissioner Busquin very kindly assured me of this once again in a letter this week, and that is why it is dangerous for us now to be weaker in the Charter than in existing European Union legislation. This is not our delegation's fault; it is not Roman Herzog's fault: it is the fault of the governments of the Member States. That is why pressure needs to be exerted on them once again to introduce an improvement at this point in the text.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, the Group of the is convinced by the efforts Greece has made to fulfil the convergence criteria. We support the recommendation and the rapporteur’s report. It is important for the European internal market to at last be properly completed. This will only be feasible if every last Member State of the European Union joins monetary union. It is therefore important from the point of view of business and commerce for all EU States to join, especially those that are able to fulfil the convergence criteria. Only then will it be possible to protect an even larger part of the economic area against exchange rate fluctuations. A large currency union would also improve our chances of being able to coordinate economic policies, and hence achieve deeper European integration. Like any other Member of the European Monetary Union, Greece will have to continue to make efforts and to acquit itself of its responsibilities. That goes without saying, particularly where the level of debt in Greece is concerned. As mentioned before, Greece, along with Belgium and Italy, have been singled out for monitoring on this aspect. But I would also like to ask you once again to consider that the examination of other States’ stability programmes that took place last year also gave rise to criticism. As such, Greece is not the only State to have to keep proving itself over and over again in this respect. A permanent Community of solidarity – which is precisely what monetary union is – demands sustained harmonisation activity. That is what the partners of monetary union have promised themselves and they must keep their promise. Both the Treaty and the Stability and Growth Pact give expression to this. Like other Members before it, Greece is going to have to work on being able to sustain its fulfilment of the convergence criteria. The interest rate adjustments that Greece needs to make to bring it into line with the euro zone are making heavy demands on its economy, society and social partners. That is why it is so important for there to be consensus between the major political parties and the social partners. It will enable us to feel confident that Greece will prove to be a successful partner in monetary union. There is no reason to fear that monetary union will be weakened by Greece joining, because it is the stability of the currency that matters. Any country that wants to join the euro zone must fulfil the convergence criteria. In the long term, internal stability is only crucial to the external value of a currency. The fact that the average rate of inflation in the euro zone is 1.9% is a clear illustration of this. I would remind you once again, in this connection, that the Treaty of Maastricht states that we need a monetary policy that guarantees the stability of the currency. This was achieved in the first few months of the euro zone’s existence. The dollar/euro exchange rate cannot be used to guide monetary policy. What matters is that the internal purchasing power of the euro is very stable, as used to be the case with the Deutschmark.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, young people are particularly affected by pensions since, after all, they contribute to pensions during their working life and subsequently benefit from those pensions. Do you have in mind providing information, through schools in particular, about the future shape of pensions systems and about the fact that mobility will, of course, be encouraged if these ideas are actually implemented?

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, this is one of the few times I have actually spoken on a topical or urgent matter in this House. I am motivated to do so because the shock waves and repercussions of what is happening in Zimbabwe have reached even my constituency in the in Yorkshire in the North of England in a number of ways in the last couple of weeks. It started with a visit from a young Zimbabwean with our local asylum seekers' organisation. He was an active member of the MDC. He and his fiancée had fled in fear of their lives, first to South Africa and, finding that not safe, they had come to the UK, but unfortunately his fiancée is likely to be returned. We do not know to what, but we can suspect. Then last week in Ripon in Yorkshire, I was asked to share a platform with a Member of the Zimbabwean Parliament, a shadow minister. Quietly spoken, he told of his aspirations for his country, a country of great potential but where, as we have heard, democracy and human rights are now denied and the rule of the law flouted. He told how he had been beaten, how he feared daily for his wife and his family and, just as we have also heard, he feared what would happen to him when he returns on 17 March. When people are fleeing for their lives across the world and when democratically elected politicians are in fear of their lives, Europe needs to make a response that this is not acceptable. I believe our resolution is clear and I hope it gets the support it deserves. (Applause) Children abducted by one of their parents

Political group: ELDR
A similar problem. I omitted to sign last night as I was travelling all day and arrived a bit late last evening. I would appreciate it if you would consider me as having been present when it comes to the Minutes. I was in Strasbourg yesterday evening but I omitted to sign.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, the aim of my speech, which will be brief, is simply to highlight some of the aspects that I referred to in the opinion of which I was draftsperson on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy. First of all, this Commission document is to be welcomed, and not only because it seeks to put right specific aspects of the way in which development and cooperation policy is implemented. It also endeavours to place this action in a broader framework with wide-ranging scope, in line with what was laid down at the Helsinki European Council. Mr Gemelli’s report has added depth and consistency to this objective and therefore warrants our approval. Secondly, I wish to draw your attention once again to the advantage to be gained from greater intracommunity coordination of development and foreign policy. We all know that European participation plays a substantial role in supporting developing countries and that we provide more money than any other donor. These facts are not sufficiently appreciated, however, either for what they mean in financial terms, specifically in terms of commitments and the expectations that are raised, or for the responsibility that they require with regard to the political influence exercised on the development processes in the countries involved. A common strategy to confirm the international role of the European Union, given legitimacy by the principles of cooperation and human rights, can only benefit those countries that wish to progress from the level of the helpless or even of victims to the status of partners. Thirdly and finally, we must make development policy more effective, principally through a more reliable system for the monitoring, control and assessment of programmes and their results on the ground. This would probably involve the creation of new management bodies, but it will certainly have to entail a better use of existing resources, specifically the delegations, and a genuine reform of the Community’s external service.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, yesterday evening, we asked Parliament’s services to regard Amendment No 12, which the Group of the tabled in an attempt to bring about equal treatment, as an addition. We are not opposed to equal treatment, except where it takes precedence over the reduction of administrative burdens for businesses, as the two are completely unrelated. No doubt this is a ruse to remove this reduction from the text. I look forward to hearing whether Mr Miller is going to see this as complementary. If that is not possible, then I see it as a ruse to delete from the text the reduction of administrative burdens on businesses, which the Socialists, possibly, do not want it to include.

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, I did not want to say anything about the Minutes, but before you come to the Minutes, I would like to come back briefly to the procedure adopted this morning in respect of the vote. During the lunch break, I checked again to see which of the Rules of Procedure could be the basis for holding the vote on the Schmitt report – which was firmly on the agenda for this afternoon – at midday without a debate. I failed to find in the Rules of Procedure any rule which, in my view, would cover this procedure. I therefore wish to request the Bureau to notify me formally which article in the Rules of Procedure formed the basis for this morning's decision.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, I share the President-in-Office's view that extreme right-wing parties in governments have lost nothing; nor could they in Austria because extreme right-wing parties are banned in Austria. My question to the President-in-Office is this: how is it that extreme right-wing parties are not banned in France and what is the President-in-Office's opinion of extreme left-wing parties in government? Allow me a brief comment, Mr President: I love France, I love the French and the charm of French men is, as a rule – I repeat, as a rule – unsurpassed.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, it is only natural that the issue of the fight against terrorism should be given a certain amount of attention in Ghent. The European Union has acted with impressive unity and decisiveness. We can look forward to a long-term battle on several fronts, including the political and the legal fronts, with a sensitive balance regarding respect for legal rights. In terms of the long view politically and economically, we may also be able to establish a better legal system with a stronger UN. It is gratifying that the US has realised the importance of the UN and is paying its debts to that organisation. Perhaps the EU can also get the US to ratify the protocol on the International Criminal Court. Of course, we must also work in the long term to achieve peace and democracy throughout the Middle East. In Ghent, enlargement will also be discussed. The Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party believes it is vital that each country be assessed on its own merits and that the principle of differentiation be genuinely upheld. That is a message I should like to send to the presidency. Finally, when it comes to the Convention, I should like to thank the President-in-Office of the Council for the concrete explanations. However, there is still a certain amount of concern in this area. The Convention is not a debating club for talking in rather general terms about various alternatives regarding the future of Europe. The Convention is not an alibi for the Council, but a serious and democratic partner in this discussion. Regardless of its composition – I hope that the candidate countries will be given a strong role to play in this context – the Convention will contain a large number of hard-working parliamentarians who need to know that the work that is put in is taken very seriously.

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, in view of the words of the rapporteur, Mrs Sanders-ten Holte, who did not manage to have her point of view endorsed by the Committee on Development and Cooperation, nor in plenary, she has recognised that she cannot share the conclusions or the result of the vote. I believe, Mr President, that the most honest and reasonable thing for Mrs Sanders-ten Holte to do would be to relinquish her responsibilities, since she cannot accept the opinion of plenary and since she has not been able to win the support of the Committee on Development and Cooperation.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, honourable Members, the High Representative of the European Union, Mr Javier Solana, stated in an interview with the Greek Tribune that, unless the Cyprus problem can be resolved, only the Greek Cypriot part of the island will accede to the European Union. Mr Solana's successive replies to the repeated questions put by the newspaper journalist, who stressed that this contradicted everything we know about the Helsinki resolution, leave no room for error or misunderstanding. The position taken by Mr Solana confirms the reading of the Communist Party of Greece, especially after the Helsinki Summit, that the process for Cyprus to accede to the European Union will split the island, legitimise the Turkish occupation and justify the 1974 invasion. And furthermore, Mr Solana demonstrated total contempt of the United Nations resolutions on Cyprus and international law in general in his statement. I should like to ask you to speak to the High Representative, Mr President, given that the position which he has expressed completely contradicts the decisions and resolutions passed by the European Parliament.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President-in-Office, thank you for that very wide-ranging answer. Unfortunately, one of the problems of wide-ranging answers and short times is that you get breadth but you do not get depth, and I would like to ask for a bit more detail. I do find it quite extraordinary that you say it is too early to talk about the detail of some of these plans, given that the Gothenburg Summit is not far away. I wanted to focus in particular on the General Affairs Council. You will know that this is the only Council that has not produced any documents in line with the Council's requests, so I would like to know when we might see some more detail on that in particular? Will we see a draft before Gothenburg. If we do not have any detail on the General Affairs Council plan, can you at least say what kind of structure and shape it will take, what indicators it will be using and the follow-up and monitoring?

Political group: Verts-ALE
Firstly I would like to say that the previous speaker, my illustrious committee chairman, was being slightly disingenuous because there is no real demand for a European public prosecutor. Only two weeks ago in Parliament we saw huge tranches of her own report being deleted because they contained references to such a body. There will be some dissension among the various political parties in this House but many people are concerned about what this is actually leading to. I do not think you were being completely fair with us, Commissioner, when you said it will only go so far and no further. Will it lead to corpus juris? If you say no to this question, how can you reconcile that with the answer that Mrs Delmas-Marty gave our committee a month ago? Mrs Delmas-Marty is the former head of the supervisory body of OLAF and she has written many books on this particular subject. She said yes – a European public prosecutor will almost certainly lead to corpus juris, a common body of law throughout the Community. What would be the core competences of the European public prosecutor? What powers would he or she have? What are the Community's financial interests? Surely you are not ignoring political signals sent by both the Council – many countries are against this – and Parliament, which, as I said at the beginning, two weeks ago rejected many things to do with the European public prosecutor? IN THE CHAIR: MR PUERTAVice-President

Political group: PPE-DE
Thank you, Mr President, for your comprehensive response to our question. The events of recent days compel us, however, to call for a further Council initiative, for, as you will know, not only has another woman, in addition to Safiya Yakubu Hussaini, been sentenced to death by stoning – Aishatu Abubakar, whom the same court in the same region of Nigeria condemned to a similar sentence on similar grounds a few weeks ago – but the news has arrived today that, in the Sudan, a young 18-year old Christian woman named Abok Alfa Akok, who does not speak Arabic, has also been sentenced to stoning by what is, in this case, a civil, not a religious court, without being permitted a defence and without being given a linguistic translation either. Well then, I believe that the undertakings assumed by the Council are important but that, alongside them, there should also be constant protection in individual cases. I therefore place in your hands these two new cases as well as that of Safiya.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, it gives me great pleasure to say that the budget for 2003 has gone wonderfully well. It was a privilege to be in on the mid-term and end-of-year conciliation meetings where there was constructive and sensible debate and deals were done. I would like to praise Commissioner Kinnock for his reforms at the Commission, although there has been one blind spot. I am delighted to see Mrs Schreyer here today, who hopefully is going to talk about accounting control. During the passage of this budget we in the Conservatives and the tried to indicate that we needed better and tighter accounting control. If we did not get that, we would not release certain amounts of money and allow certain staffing levels. This is absolutely vital. It is a great pity that the Committee on Budgets takes one forward look at the budget, but then encounters budgetary control implications, and there is a bit of a gap between the two. There needs to be a seamless thread, and I am delighted that Mrs Schreyer is here to address that issue today. Looking ahead, it is vital that we have the common agricultural policy reform carried out to programme and not delayed, because this is so vital to enlargement and the sensible payment of reasonable subsidies – I say reasonable and stress that word – to the accession countries. I praise the fact that we get good value from the European Union budget. We have brought down the percentage of gross domestic product spent on the budget successfully, so that it is now just over 1% at 1.02%. I praise everyone involved, particularly the rapporteurs, on a very successful budget outcome.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, most farmers in Portugal are worried at these Commission proposals on reforming the common organisation of the markets in Mediterranean produce such as oil, tobacco and cotton. These are bad proposals, both because they uphold the discrimination against specifically Mediterranean produce, which has always received poor treatment at the hands of the CAP, and also because they provide an incentive for farmers to abandon production, by decoupling aid and by failing to increase the appropriations and mechanisms to regulate the market, which would enable us to remedy any potential injustices in the distribution of aid amongst countries, amongst forms of production and amongst producers. As a matter of fact, the stated objective of last July’s CAP reform is to make budgetary savings, more specifically of EUR 113 million in annual savings by 2013, and also to ensure the liberalisation of farming in the WTO negotiations. This is an unacceptable position. The vast majority of Mediterranean production is located in the cohesion countries and in the least-favoured regions, and is extremely labour-intensive. I am talking about olive and tobacco farming for example, and these are often the main source of income in these regions. They therefore deserve fair treatment from the Commission. It is unacceptable that no account is taken of the social and environmental consequences, particularly in mountainous regions and in other least-favoured areas, as is the case in Portugal, where very few alternatives to these crops of olive oil, tobacco and cotton exist and where the production of fruits, vegetables and wines is experiencing serious difficulties. It is unacceptable that the Commission takes no account of the specific characteristics of Portugal’s situation, or even of the 1998 decision approving the planting of 30 000 new hectares of olive groves with the right to aid for modernising the sector. It is unacceptable that refunds for olive oil used in preserves should be brought to an end and national monitoring agencies closed down, insisting on a policy that undermines the quality of oil, by not banning the blending of olive oil with other vegetable oils and by allowing misleading labelling for products that are not genuinely oil. Equally serious is the Commission’s proposal for the tobacco sector, which loses part of its current aid in conditions that jeopardise the continuity of production and industry, resulting in unemployment and an increase in exports from outside the Union. The situation of cotton is also unacceptable because the amount of land eligible for aid is set at a derisory 360 hectares.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Faced with the task of setting new objectives for the European Union, we consider it essential to carry out a wide-ranging revision of the financial perspectives with special emphasis on Heading 3, “Internal Policies” and Heading 4, “External Actions”. We believe that the new priorities need to be matched to the ‘fresh money’ available. In view of this we fundamentally and above all reject the prospect of cuts in the cooperation policy, as implied in the Commission’s preliminary draft. The same applies to the cuts they propose in the areas of employment and the environment. In the same way, we reject the cut of EUR 300 million for agriculture. Indeed, as regards agriculture, we believe that it is vital to set up a fund to tackle the enormous problems in the primary sector. Accordingly, we agree with some of the rapporteur’s proposals. However, although she does suggest some improvements, they fall well short of what is absolutely necessary. Furthermore, some of the amendments made in the final vote limited and even changed its scope. And that is without even looking at the position on defence policy. For these reasons, we voted against the final version of the report. - Paciotti report (A5-0177/2000)

Political group: GUE-NGL