GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Madam President, I would firstly like to congratulate Mr Blak on having finally taken the decision to propose, in his report, the discharge to the Commission in respect of the implementation of the budget of the sixth, seventh and eighth European Development Funds for the 2000 financial year. The Commission, and particularly Commissioner Nielson, have made a great effort to keep Parliament informed on expenditure from these funds. Developing countries that are beneficiaries of these funds deserve the adoption by Parliament of the discharge already approved by the Court of Auditors. For this reason, the Socialist Group and the Committee on Development, for which I am rapporteur, support this discharge. However, we would ask the Commission that in future more funds be earmarked for social development and that these be more clearly reflected, as proposed by the Committee on Development, in both the budget and the EDF. We hope that next year we will be able to analyse the figures for EU aid in accordance with the OECD’s Development Aid Committee system, which will allow us to measure the impact of Community funds on the promotion of social development more accurately. With regard to the amendments tabled by Mr Blak himself, we have to reject those which refer to access to documents and the revision of the interinstitutional framework agreement, not because of substantive issues, for the agreement is not actually proving to be very effective, but because we cannot question, in each report by the Committee on Budgetary Control, the validity of an agreement that has been negotiated, signed and voted on by this Parliament with the participation, let us not forget, of members from that very committee. The Courts have also stated their opinion in this regard. We therefore understand that that matter of access to documents should not be raised in a report. On the other hand, we support the other amendments regarding audits and the management of the business development centre. This exercise in the discharge of the EDF, which we ritually tackle each year, should serve as an illustration, once again, of the ridiculous situation where Parliament inspects the discharge of funds that do not figure in the Community budget, the amounts of which we are not consulted on and on whose expenditure we are only informed of a posteriori. The EDF, implemented by the Commission and theoretically controlled by Parliament, should be included within the Community budget as a fundamental quantitative and qualitative element of development policy. We believe that at this time of reform of the European Union, we have the perfect opportunity to remind ourselves of this fact and I would encourage all political groups to communicate this proposal, which Parliament has supported for many years, to the Convention.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, in its wisdom, the House has made a decision on Friday sittings. I should like to suggest that those responsible ensure that, even if no sittings are held on a Friday, official cars are still made available, because there will be many Members who will, in any case, wish to make full use of the Thursday here and who will need to have some way of reaching the airport or the railway station on the Friday.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission has just described the ways in which industry, especially the motor industry, must constantly be modernising its plant. We know that there is no getting away from this and that every investment in technology results in the loss of between 9% and 25% of jobs. We must indeed find the means to counteract this loss of jobs, which occurs as a result of technology. I was interested to hear the Commission’s statements to the effect that we had minimum rules for workers’ rights. Such a statement is, of course, no use whatever to the workers in Genk. I hope, though, that the Commission will remember this statement when it amends the European Works Councils Directive, as it is shortly to do, and will at last take account of something that has, in some places, become common practice, that is, making the European Works Council responsible when European mainstream issues are under discussion in a firm, and will also extend the rights of information and consultation in such a way that rights of participation – and I am not talking about consultation, but about participation – are built in. Thirdly, it is essential that the Commission should learn how, in the social dialogue, to make it clear to the social partners that they have to expect penalties for failing to abide by these agreed ground rules, or else such rules will become a joke.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, the proposal for a directive presented by the Commission is a timid proposal. It is timid at a time when there is continuous environmental damage – the most recent example being the ‘Prestige’ – which is causing indignation amongst all our peoples, with mass demonstrations – in my country, for example, where the people are calling for this type of damage never to happen again. And faced with this timid directive, the Group of the European Peoples’ Party, taking advantage of their current majority in the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, has established even more restrictions, making it practically impossible to demand that the people causing the damage should meet their environmental responsibilities. The polluter pays principle would be entirely jeopardised if the amendments approved on the proposal of the European Peoples’ Party within the Committee on Legal Affairs were adopted. The Group of the presented a series of amendments intended to reinforce the content of this directive. As I said previously, those amendments were rejected in the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market by that mechanical majority of the right, but, taking advantage of the fact that such a majority does not exist in the plenary, the Parliamentary Group of the European Socialist Party has reintroduced that group of amendments – from No 98 to the end – which are aimed at re-establishing the polluter pays principle, at establishing the general principle of responsibility and establishing the possibility of any person affected being able to demand the relevant compensation. We hope that, in plenary, these amendments presented by the Group of the which are aimed, as I said earlier, at re-establishing, on the one hand, the whole of the directive and, on the other, at reinforcing the directive as a whole so that the damage caused, for example, by maritime goods transport, by nuclear accidents, by the damage caused by the spread of genetically modified organisms or even by biotechnology, can be effectively repaired. I hope that the plenary of the European Parliament will approve this group of amendments and thereby rectify the text adopted in the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market as a result of this unilateral approach favouring the people causing the damage. I believe this is a justified aspiration, which the citizens of the European Union expect from us, and I therefore hope that the modified text will be accepted. And specifically, I imagine that the Commission will have to provide a little more detail in relation to the statements by Commissioner Wallström, since we would like to know a little more precisely what the Commission’s attitude is to both the amendments which have been approved within the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market and the amendments which we hope will be approved once the plenary gives its opinion on the group of amendments we have now presented.

Political group: PSE
Madame President, I have a problem with yesterday’s Minutes. They refer to me as ‘Mr’. I gave an explanation of vote on Avilés Perea’s report on the Daphne programme, I am referred to in the Minutes as ‘Herr’ Kauppi, and I would prefer it to read ‘Madame’.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, I hope I can risk Mrs Izquierdo's wrath by saying that I agree with the Commissioner. I want to put it to her that it is far better to reduce the rate of growth in agriculture in order to protect the money that is currently going to the very poor in this world, because the alternative would be to squeeze further the budget lines in category 4. It would be unacceptable to find money for Kosovo – which I support – at the expense of the very poor in the world. Does the Commissioner agree with that?

Political group: PSE
Mr President, Commissioner, we are at first reading, not at ‘second first reading’, and I must say to you, as rapporteur for the report on the White Paper, that the project you are presenting to us is organised and is in line with those recommendations. I would therefore like to congratulate and thank Mr van Miert for his work, because, naturally, the railway, the ports and maritime transport, inland waterways and roads, essentially in the enlargement countries, are quite rightly included, and we are therefore moving in the right direction. The time has now come to respect the role of Parliament. We cannot be convinced, as the rapporteur intended, that Parliament cannot modify this proposal. Parliament’s proposals are not nit-picking amendments. I believe that the Commission must continue to play its role so that many of the extremely reasonable proposals, which I am not going to refer to, are accepted, because they contain extremely positive elements.

Political group: PSE
Madam President, over the last few days, we have watched the dream of peace in the Middle East disintegrate. The horrifying pictures of children running for cover being killed and of civilians being fired at from tanks and helicopters give us just a tiny glimpse of the hell which could be in store for both sides, Israel and Palestine, if they fail to conclude and implement the peace process as quickly as possible. That is the most important aspect at the moment, not apportioning blame and condemnation. The European Union should do everything it can to serve this objective and the potential inherent in it. However, I am not prepared – as I have been urged on several occasions, purely in order to appear fair – to refrain from calling the events of the last few days by their proper name or from making the same demands on both sides, as if the provocation and force were divided equally between them. Or should I call on the Hamas leader Scheich Yassin to refrain from his possible intention of visiting the wailing wall on the Sabbath in order to provoke the Jews praying there? Should I perhaps call on the Palestinian army to withdraw its tanks and helicopters from Israeli towns and villages and stop firing on civilian Israelis? Should I perhaps call on the Palestinian army not to shoot any small Israeli children cowering behind walls and trying to take cover behind barrels? I am not prepared to engage in this sort of fairness. But I am prepared to call on my fellow members in the House to have the courage to call a murder a murder and to condemn provocation as provocation and not as counter-productivity, as Mrs Albright said, in order to gloss things over, purely to appear fair towards both sides. In this respect, I am most grateful for the clear statement made by my fellow Member Mr Lagendijk.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, the first thing I have to say is that I do not recognise myself in the opinion which I myself am signing in relation to this report. This is for one fundamental reason: at the point of voting, two paragraphs were removed from this opinion of the Committee on Petitions which seemed to me to be extremely important. They were voted off essentially by Members from the Right. I would like to quote these two paragraphs which seemed so important to me and which, when they disappeared from the text, obliged me to abstain from my own opinion. One of them said – actually it was the end of one paragraph – that ‘economic, social and cultural rights are essential to the exercise of civil and political rights’. A person who is hungry, who has no work and who has no home, is in no position to enjoy civil rights. I thought this sentence was important and it was removed. The other, which is perhaps a bit more arguable, said: ‘the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union should be supplemented with such important binding rights as the right to work, housing, a minimum income, the right to a healthy environment and the voting rights for citizens of third countries who have resided for five years in the Union, as well as the extension of civil rights to immigrants who arrive in Europe in search of a decent life’. This paragraph was also removed. I therefore had to abstain from my own opinion, Mr President. Nevertheless, I believe that the Committee on Petitions clearly contributes to the defence of the rights of the European citizens. The proof is that more than 1 400 citizens in Europe send petitions to this committee each year, which relate to the recognition of qualifications, free movement, the rights of immigrants and the right to a healthy environment. Mr President, I unfortunately have to recognise that in Europe we have a scourge, terrorism, which seriously harms the human right to expression and the fundamental right, the right to life. We would very much like – and I repeat this in my recent modest capacity and I will continue to repeat it – Europe today to be a continent which is distinguished in the defence of its own human rights and of human rights outside its borders. I believe that that is the role we must play. Unfortunately, I believe that we are not playing it at the moment but I hope that we will be able to do so in the future.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, we think Commissioner Lamy’s ‘Everything but arms’ initiative, which should allow the least developed countries to place their products on European Union markets with no quantitative or tariff restrictions, is a positive measure. In this overall evaluation we agree both with Joaquim Miranda and his report, which was approved by our Committee on Development and Cooperation, and with the concerns and criticisms that the rapporteur expresses with regard to the proposed amendments to the Regulation that we are discussing here. We also feel it is unnecessary, mean and even pathetic that for products like sugar, rice and bananas the proposed opening-up will not be fully effective until 2009. The reasons that have led to this cautious measure do not seem justified to us. Other machinery could have been set up to protect Community production of these foodstuffs without diminishing the value of the initiative we are debating through this move. We believe that the proposal made by Mr Miranda that this whole question should be discussed with our partners, the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries, within the context of the Cotonou Agreement, is also pertinent. This ‘Everything but arms’ programme is essentially a political gesture, the essential value of which lies in the European Union’s show of solidarity towards those who are most in need within the developing world. As a gesture, it is of interest and important, but there is no reason to exaggerate its consequences – which some have defined as a threat to certain sectors in the European Union – or to exaggerate its positive effects, which are certainly very limited, on the economies of the actual countries affected. Even though this is all it may be, what should be stressed is that it is a little step in the right direction. Perhaps the most debatable point is the discrimination it makes among developing countries between least developed and slightly more developed ones; this is an arbitrary division and therefore one that introduces injustice, something that in the medium term we should overcome. Lastly, I shall mention a detail that we believe is indispensable and which is already hinted at in the regulation to which this initiative refers. It is the need to establish strict controls to prevent fraud, whereby the produce of other countries, even highly-developed ones, might reach Europe via countries that are beneficiaries of these measures in order to benefit from the new conditions established here. This really could become dangerous, and it would also be cheating the generous intentions behind the measure, which if defrauded would turn against the interests of those whom we are trying to help today.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as the last speaker, I would like briefly to go into four particular points again. Firstly, as we see it, enlargement is not merely an obligation. It is true that we are motivated by moral considerations, but we are also committed to enlargement owing to deeply held political convictions. Enlargement is a win-win situation. Both sides: the Member States of the European Union and the candidate countries, stand to benefit from enlargement once it has taken place. Secondly, enlargement – both the enlargement of the European Union and that of the Economic and Monetary Union – is about fulfilling criteria. There are the Copenhagen criteria to be fulfilled on the one hand, and those of Maastricht on the other. It should be made clear to all countries that accession to the European Union is not quite the same thing as accession to the Economic and Monetary Union and to the euro zone, and that there are different deadlines. It is clear that there is to be no opting out of the Economic and Monetary Union, and no bargaining during either set of negotiations. Thirdly, we must do our utmost to prepare the European Union for the enlargement process, by 2003, in the spirit of the splendid speech made by President of the Commission, Mr Prodi. Fourthly – and it is very important to me to make this point by way of conclusion – notwithstanding the pacts that are to be fulfilled, the enlargement process is a political process. It is about people’s hopes and fears, opportunities and risks, prejudice and fact. We must accord this political process the historic importance it deserves and enter into discussion with the citizens. We need to politicise the politics of the enlargement process if we are to have the ability to engage in meaningful conversation with the citizens. The enlargement process and the Economic and Monetary Union are not just a matter for the European institutions. I call upon the Member States and all public mandate holders and media at all levels to become more actively involved in this process, because only then will we be able to do justice to public confidence in these initiatives, the objects of which are in the interests of us all.

Political group: PPE-DE
Madam President, the text reads “Macedonian government”. This is an oral amendment and we should ask if there are any objections to it.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, in light of the horrendous passenger ferry disasters which have taken place recently in the European Community, such as the Estonia and the United Kingdom cross-channel ferry tragedies, these reports are a very constructive and welcome step forward. I would like to thank my colleagues, Mr Ripoll y Martínez de Bedoya and Mr Poignant for all their hard work on these sister (or in this case brother) reports and in drawing up sensible conclusions for improved safety standards for ro-ro passenger ferries servicing European ports and domestic voyages within Member States. The time is clearly right to bring forward these directives, stability requirements and technical updates for these ships. Key to these directives is that the requirements we are now laying down are stricter than those laid down by the SOLAS 90 Convention, thereby ensuring that accidents of the magnitude we have experienced in the European Community will be much less likely to happen again. We must also endeavour to ensure full implementation of the directives. Alongside the proposed technical improvements, I particularly welcome measures to improve the safety of persons with reduced mobility. I support Mr Ripoll y Martínez de Bedoya's proposal for a narrower definition of the term 'reduced mobility'. I also welcome the proposed improvement and accessibility of signs aboard ship and the provision of alarm systems which are not only accessible to all passengers but which can be seen and heard by all passengers. Furthermore, I believe we must ensure that the crew manning these vessels are highly trained and able to brief passengers on safety procedures in more than one language so that unnecessary loss of life is prevented.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, war is a cruel way of solving people’s differences. It is tragic when the civil population suffers as a result of its leaders’ lack of skills and experience. The Ottawa Convention, which restricts the use of mines, is a very worthwhile endeavour. Too many children have lost their lives or become crippled while playing in a danger zone. The EU’s aid programme is necessary and I fully back it. It is our duty to help nations that are suffering as a result of political mistakes made long ago. In some countries there are more mines than there are truffles in France, and both are as hard to find. Although I am in favour of ending the misuse of mines, I do wish to raise the issue of the problems that Finland has in this connection. Finland has not signed the Ottawa Convention, and reference has been made to that quite often here, as in the case of the previous speaker also. The criticisms, however, are sanctimonious and based on ignorance. Ladies and gentlemen, just look at Finland. The country is sparsely populated and it has a land border with Russia that is more than a thousand kilometres long. The history we share with our neighbour has often been full of anguish. We must fall back on the old Roman truth: the best way to keep the peace is to prepare for war. The mines are an essential part of Finland’s defences. They cannot be used to conquer other countries, but are only used for purposes of defence. All the mines in Finland are safely stored and are not exported to other countries. Their use is subject to stringent discipline. I would like to stress this. Furthermore, all the mines are easy to remove in the wake of any conflict. Finland cannot be put in the same category as many less developed countries, where the use of mines is very random and the inevitable consequences of that are evident. It must be realised that Finland spends large sums of money on mine clearance in other countries. In practice, this means removing mines with Finnish equipment, providing assistance for victims, and the destruction of mine stores. This work supports the EU’s efforts. Finland has already, for its own part, taken responsibility for the world’s mine problem. This must, nonetheless, come about in such a way that one’s own country’s security is not compromised as a result of political pressures.

Political group: PPE-DE