GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Mr President, my group welcomes this report, mainly because of two key points that it contains. Firstly, it makes the case for a wider IGC than the three so-called Amsterdam left-overs. Although those are key points, crucial points, we believe that it is right that the IGC ranges beyond just those three issues. This view is indeed gaining ground, thanks partly to the Dehaene report and the Commission’s own proposals – and I pay tribute to Mr Barnier who is here with us – but it is also gaining ground and rightly so among the national governments. Nobody wants an all encompassing IGC dealing with every subject facing the Union in the Maastricht style, but there is a strong case to add to the agenda half a dozen key subjects which must be resolved if our Union is to work efficiently, transparently and democratically and is to be capable of facing up to having nearly 30 Member States. The second reason is that it makes the case for more democratic procedures. Amsterdam was already better than previous IGCs to a limited degree, in that it was prepared by a reflection group in which Parliament participated and which published its full report, in that every proposal tabled in that IGC was published and put into the public domain and in that Parliament was able to send two representatives to at least some of the meetings. The time has now come, though, to be able to send Parliamentary representatives to all the meetings and to participate in the IGC on the same basis as the Commission, as a Community institution, to make our case, to advocate our proposals and at times to argue against the proposals made by others. Mr President, my group has tabled only two amendments and two requests for a split vote on this report. That is because in the main we think this report strikes the right balance between ambition and realism. One amendment seeks to re-establish in the report a request that the IGC should re-examine the issue of flexible cooperation. It is unthinkable that we should move to nearly 30 Member States without the IGC re-examining that question. With nearly thirty Member States we need a clause on flexible cooperation that is actually workable. The second amendment looks at the issue of having two parts to the Treaty: the constitutional part, looking at the main principles and the institutional provisions, and the small print dealing with policies. This idea has widespread support. Views differ, however, as to whether that second part should be amendable by a simplified procedure. Our amendments suggest that sections of that second part should be amendable by a simplified procedure – maybe not all of it, that may cause insurmountable problems, but at least part of it. There are many cases in the existing Treaties – different protocols, parts of the European Coal and Steel Treaty for instance – that are amendable by simplified procedure and the IGC should look constructively at this. Mr President, the Treaties are the European Union’s constitution. They need to be made clearer, more transparent, more effective and more democratic. The IGC must take on board that challenge.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, Commissioner, products from the Occupied Territories are, according to the Association Agreement, not Israeli products. That is how we need to view this dossier. It is symbolic, and symbols are important in issues of war and peace, especially now. The wall that Israel is now erecting is more than a symbol. It has nothing to do with preventing terrorism, but everything to do with denying the Palestinians the water and water resources on which they rely for their agriculture and for surviving in their villages. The right to water is a human right, and because this human right is being violated, together with other human rights, I am asking for this Association Agreement to be suspended.

Political group: Verts-ALE
British Conservative Members of the Group voted against this report because we feel that it moves too far away from the Commission's original intention of tightening up budgetary control mechanisms. Further, while being sensitive to the socio-economic function of cotton-growing in certain regions, we strongly dispute the rapporteur's assessment that cotton is less environmentally hazardous than other crops. It is well known that a vast array of chemicals are used in cotton-production and we therefore support the Commission's aim for Member States to determine and adopt the appropriate environmental measures to regulate the use of agricultural land used to produce cotton. The insistence that Member States remind producers of the need to comply with environmental legislation is particularly welcomed by British Conservatives. - Izquierdo Rojo Report (A5-0035/2001)

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, I am pleased that the Commission has produced the action plan on lifelong learning, new technologies, access to the built environment and so on, but we need to go much further. As rapporteur for the European Year of People with Disabilities, all of us set out with very high hopes for this year. We wanted to see positive outcomes and indeed that is what I wrote in my report. We need to mainstream disabled peoples' rights, get away from the medical model of disability once and for all and move to the social or rights-based model of disability. We also need to highlight the achievements of disabled people. Some of those things have been done, but I did not want this just to be a pat on the back for the Member States for having held conferences in major cities, or for them to say simply 'how wonderful we are to have had a European Year of People with Disabilities'. We must make sure that disabled people really are at the top of the political agenda and that means that the employment directive must be fully implemented. I would like to know which countries have not implemented the employment directive, which countries have not put into place anything to start to implement that directive and what sanctions the Commission is going to take against those countries to make sure they implement it. Furthermore, we need, as Mr Mantovani and Mrs Gillig said, a specific disability directive. If we do not get that specific directive, I, along with a lot of disabled peoples' organisations, feel that the European Year of People with Disabilities will have been a failure. I am sorry to have to say that because we have made some progress, but without the commitment to a disability directive we have not gone far enough.

Political group: ELDR
Madam President, I protest against the rather intemperate remarks of Mr Balfe. There is no power under Scottish law to keep people locked up just as long as it suits you. The arrests that took place at Faslane today were in accordance with the law, and I do not doubt that the persons concerned will be speedily released. It is very important that my colleague, Mrs Lucas, should have the opportunity in this House to raise the issue of whether her immunity extends to this case, given that there is serious doubt – already raised and tested in the Scottish courts – about the lawfulness of the nuclear weapons kept on Scottish soil.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Madam President, please allow me firstly, as a Spaniard, to thank all the honourable Members who have expressed their solidarity. Allow me also to express my deepest disdain for this vermin in human form and above all affection and solidarity with the families suffering today; solidarity and affection in their pain and suffering. As Commissioner Solbes said, we must carry on, although it is not easy. We are debating the Commission’s proposal to update Regulation (EEC) No 1408/71 with regard to specific benefits and non-contributory payments. The proposal is mainly aimed at incorporating the judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Communities, specifying the special and non-contributory nature of certain benefits, and also reflects the changes which have taken place in the different national legislations. I believe that the crux of the debate is whether or not to include in Annex IIa the benefits laid down in national legislations and the consequences of that inclusion in the said annex, in other words, their non-exportability or, where relevant, their exportability. Of the various amendments presented, I agree with Nos 1, 2 and 3, both because of the characteristics or nature of the benefits in question, or because of the conditions for receiving them, or the difficulty or impossibility of controlling them. Naturally, Amendments Nos 4, 5, 7 and 8, which relate to benefits whose exportable nature was mentioned a while ago, are dealing with benefits which sometimes have equivalents in the Member States, suited, furthermore, to living conditions. In any event, I believe this should be studied. I cannot agree with Amendments Nos 9 to 12; firstly because they involve family benefits in all cases. The general criterion of the regulation is that family benefits are exported; anything else would be discrimination, and would hinder the free movement of persons, and within the context of that free movement, would prevent families from travelling with their rucksacks of social protection on their backs. Finally, Madam President, I would like to draw attention to making present or future health care in certain Member States conditional upon payment of certain contributions from pensions. Naturally I am referring to the new paragraph 1 of Article 33 of the Regulation. This means that the incomes of a very significant number of pensioners would be reduced. In the case of Spaniards residing in other Member States, their pensions would be reduced while, if they lived in Spain, they would receive 100% of them, since health care is a right which we could describe as automatic. We would therefore be faced with a clear case of discrimination and hindering of the free movement of persons.

Political group: PPE-DE
The UK Labour Members of the Group welcome this report without endorsing all of its detail. We think a re-organising of the Treaties and their simplification would make it easier for citizens to see clearly the field of EU responsibilities – and their limits – as well as the procedures for exercising these responsibilities. We welcome the idea that future changes, after Nice, could be prepared by a convention involving national parliaments, the European Parliament and government representatives, as recently tried, successfully, with the convention that prepared the Charter of Rights. Ratification, however, must be up to each Member State in accordance with its own procedures and traditions. We also do not wish to pre-empt this work by deciding now what should be in the new constitution, such as whether the Charter should be included. We have a constitution already in the form of the Treaties, in so far as they lay down the competences of the Union, its procedures and the composition and powers of its institutions. However they are not codified, they are unclear and they are insufficient as regards efficiency and democracy. We welcome attempts to improve them.

Political group: PSE
Madam President, I want to start by reinforcing the caution that has been expressed by many colleagues here in addressing this five-year plan. In setting very ambitious long-term goals we must not take our eyes away from the present. That was a point made very forcibly by the leader of my group, Mr Poettering, in his opening address. The Union must not take on a whole range of new tasks without the basic foundation for a successful European economy being in place. That foundation is clearly the single market. How strongly is the single market established at the moment? I want to remind Mr Prodi, and his colleagues who are still here, of the findings of the Commission’s own survey among 3000 European businesses. Nearly 40% of businesses in this survey are still reporting additional costs to render products or services compatible with national specifications. This is the Commission’s own survey. These are the classic symptoms of continued obstruction by national governments – bureaucratic red-tape blocking market entry. The Commission’s programme shows a disturbing complacency about the completion of the internal market. We have to keep the pressure up in all areas by removing further barriers, intensifying pressure on Member States who fail to implement single market measures and, of course, extending into crucial new areas like financial services. Only on the strong foundation of the single market will the agenda of enlargement be successfully achieved. An enlarged Europe must build on the existing strengths of the Union. The single market extending across that enlarged Union is going to be a colossal achievement. I conclude by saying, on behalf of all my Conservative colleagues – and we are the second largest national delegation in this Parliament – that we pledge our full support to the Commission and to Mr Prodi in achieving this historic task.

Political group: PPE-DE
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, when our farmers read in the press that we in the European Parliament are debating agricultural prices for the 2000/2001 financial year, many will certainly cherish the hope that we might just be considering a few price increases. But that is not the case! In fact, we are discussing the proposals which the Commission has tabled following the Agenda 2000 reforms. May I, at this stage, specifically thank the rapporteur, Mrs Jeggle, for her work. Hitherto, people have regarded it as a routine annual exercise when we have had to debate prices for agricultural products. Year after year, blows were exchanged and, in that respect, I now welcome the fact that the fixed multiannual price proposals really can give farmers a rather more reliable framework in which to plan their production. However, I should like to warn you that, with this system, the annual review by the Council, the Commission and Parliament might not perhaps receive the attention which it deserves. The market situation, the outlook in the individual sectors and the trends in farm incomes as well as employment should continue to be examined by the European institutions on an annual basis. The proposals on setting institutional prices and monthly increments cover the products already mentioned. Most prices were fixed under Agenda 2000, but the Commission is proposing to cut the monthly increments for cereals by 7.5%. I should like to fully support the rapporteur’s stance in this regard. In our group’s view, the reduction in the monthly increments for cereals cannot be supported, not least because the Commission’s proposal undermines the Berlin decisions on Agenda 2000. We should not continue to exert pointless pressure on farmers' incomes. I now turn to a topical issue, Commissioner Fischler, which is of interest to me. During the last plenary part-session, we once again discussed with Mrs Schreyer whether this EUR 300 million for reconstruction aid in Kosovo for 2001/2002 really could be taken out of the agriculture budget. I am familiar with the argument that we would save this amount because of the exchange rate mechanism. This was also reiterated when we were discussing the organisation of the market in sugar. But have I deduced correctly from the press that, at the beginning of last week, the Council in any case rejected this Commission proposal? I interpreted the press report as meaning that it did not support this, and I would be grateful to have the answer from your point of view, otherwise we will provoke a discussion here and debate the reality afterwards. Personally, I was extremely pleased at least by this admission from the Council at this stage.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, we voted in favour of the resolution on the wreck of the Erika out of solidarity with the victims of this ecological disaster. We do, however, deplore the indecisive nature of the resolution. Confining oneself to deploring the disaster and expressing sympathy for its victims without applying some restraining measures in order to oblige Total to make good all the direct and indirect consequences of the pollution for which it is entirely responsible is tantamount to doing nothing. It is disgusting to see Total leaving the reparation of the damage it caused to volunteers and local authorities. It is equally disgusting to see the State releasing funds, inadequate funds moreover, which represent nothing more than a backdoor subsidy to this firm and its criminal dealings. Confining oneself to discussing merely the issue of flags of convenience is dodging the main issue. Whatever the flag of convenience used by Total, the oil company responsible is widely known and represented in all the countries of the European Union and the authorities concerned could, if they were so inclined, seize all of its assets until the company makes payment. We feel we must condemn, above all, this economy in which, in order to make extra profits, a firm can ruin a region with pollution in the same way that it can ruin a region by closing factories.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, the report on the implementation of Parliament's budget is highly controversial. Although I cannot deal with all its contradictions, I cannot but denounce the truly futile calculations it contains with reference to personnel and other costs at our various places of work. All of these are intended to run Luxembourg and Strasbourg down as places of work, to glorify an unhealthy emphasis on the centrality of Brussels and to undermine the decisions under the Treaty which laid down Strasbourg and Luxembourg as places of work. These were enshrined in the Treaty and cannot therefore be altered by Parliament, thank God! Nor should they, of course, be eroded without further ado, be it by the administration, by the bureau, or by a small majority in Parliament using devious means and our calendar of part-sessions. It strikes me as positively perverse for this report to welcome a reduction in the number of journeys on official business that our officials take from Luxembourg to Brussels and back, and for it to be boasted that, in 2000, EUR 2.8 million was saved in this way, ignoring the fact that these figures conceal enforced transfers of lower and middle-stream officials from Luxembourg to Brussels, which their families find traumatic and socially and financially intolerable. Someone has also forgotten to state what additional costs are incurred through sending hundreds of officials to Strasbourg from Brussels every month, instead of from Luxembourg, thus, of course, resulting in greater expense. The intention which comes to light is a disconcerting one. In the report, Strasbourg gets more of the same treatment when it is mentioned that the variable costs of the five-day part-sessions in Strasbourg are 33% higher than for those in Brussels. I would like to propose that creative accountant for the Guinness Book of Records! What is certain is that Parliament's nonsensical decision to cut the Strasbourg part-sessions down to four days led to the costs per day of the part-sessions now being substantially higher, quite apart from this plenary not having the time to deal properly with business, especially with legislative texts! What is praised for being good value turns out, in the final analysis, to be substantially more expensive. The ratio of price to quality is quite simply wrong, and that is what I wanted to take this opportunity to say loudly and clearly! (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, I have my question written here and I shall send you a photocopy of the text and the translation so that you can see what I asked the Minister at a glance. I assure you that I would not wish anyone to think that I am arguing with you. I admire and respect you, especially when you are in the chair. I have repeatedly attended sessions during which you have chaired question time and I have no complaints. But may I add, just to prove that I did ask a question, that the Minister said that my supplementary question was not included in the text of my question. So I should like, first, to say that I clearly asked a question and, secondly, to ask you, as President, if supplementary questions should be repeated by the person who asked the initial question or if they should supplement the first question in different words but – naturally – on the same subject? I should like you to clarify this point given that you are far more experienced in procedural matters than I.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, High Representative, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, one honourable Member – he is no longer present in the Chamber – said today that he felt the “role is with the parties themselves”. If that were to be the case, and it was solely down to the warring parties, then I ask myself where is peace to be found? Where have they managed to secure peace, and maintain it too? No, I believe there is a need for mediation – and I would agree with all those who have made this point – especially with robust European participation. Because unfortunately, hatred, coercion and attempts to put the partner under pressure using these methods, have regained the upper hand. I do not feel, as has been said here, that we can expect to see the situation improve after the elections in Israel, particularly if Sharon takes over, bearing in mind what happened under Menachem Begin. The point being that Mr Sharon has done nothing recently that could lead us to conclude that he is prepared to agree a peace deal. On the contrary, his road to power is paved with various measures that prove the opposite to be true. I completely agree with Commissioner Patten. During all attempts to engage in talks – with both parties, of course – and indeed, that is the only way to perform a mediation role, we must make it crystal clear that we cannot tolerate a situation where the resources we deploy in the Middle East cannot be used productively because Israel, in particular, is putting Palestine under such pressure and cutting it off. I have already come across this several times before in Parliament – the more Israel endeavours to cut off Palestine’s lifeline, the more aid Europe will send, which means that Israel can save on financial input to the peace process to a certain extent, and Europe alone then has to pick up the tab. This is completely unacceptable. If we must shoulder this financial burden – and I, for one, truly feel that we must – then obviously there must also be strong political engagement. Notwithstanding all the pessimism, which unfortunately, I myself share, I hope that the High Representative will ultimately prove justified in his optimism, and that he will be able to strengthen Europe’s role. If the US were to withdraw from the process or keep more in the background, clearly this would be Europe’s big chance to play a fitting political role in the Middle East. IN THE CHAIR: MR MARINHOVice­President

Political group: PSE