GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Mr President, I would like to concentrate on the cod crisis. It is a tragic day today if we are meeting here not to focus on the positive reform of the CFP but to debate the fate of fisheries in the North Sea. As we all know, ISIS has recommended no fishing for haddock and whiting in these areas unless ways to harvest these stocks – and I am quoting – ‘without by-catch or discards of cod’ can be demonstrated. ISIS has also implied severe restrictions in the fisheries of nephrops, plaice and sole with – and I quote – ‘stringent restrictions on the catch and discard rates of cod with effective monitoring of compliance with those restrictions’. I am glad that the Commission has moved away from an all-out moratorium. However, sadly, due to the nature of mixed fisheries, 80% would still effectively mean the same: a closure of fisheries in the North Sea. I would like to commend the work of the UK and Scottish Fisheries Ministers; the UK Fisheries Minister Mr Elliot Moreley, the Scottish Fisheries Minister Mr Ross Finny and the Secretary of State for Scotland, Mrs Helen Liddle. They are fighting for the future of Scottish fisheries and the final decision ultimately rests at their doors, not ours. However, we have to consider what kind of future we want. Do we actually want to say: ‘sod the cod and allow fishing to continue and just hope for the best. The other stocks will not go the same way as the cod’? Or, do we want to work through, in a cooperative manner, with industry, ministers and other organisations to seek a common solution? Whatever solution is agreed, change is inevitable. At present there is no specific UK/Scottish counter-proposal to what the Commission is proposing. However, doing nothing in the light of declining cod stocks is not an option. The difficult task of reaching a quota figure that is sustainable yet scientifically credible remains. The next two weeks will be critical to finding a solution to this crisis.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, we are glad that the European Council has been called, as my Group has demanded. I imagine that the Greek Presidency will be holding very intense contacts in order to propose a common position, because intentions are not sufficient. But it did not take this crisis to demonstrate that one of the gaps that reform of the Treaties must confront is the lack of instruments to promote the common foreign and security policy. In fact, it is now exactly two years and seven months, Mr Nielson, since the Commission committed itself to adopting an initiative to respond to Parliament’s proposals on common European diplomacy. We are still waiting. Meanwhile, the Member States have taken positions. I believe that the Franco-German axis is very positive in terms of promoting European integration, but with 15 Members, and particularly with 25, nobody, by definition, can assume they speak for the European Union, and neither do I believe – as some do – that the European identity must by definition be in opposition to the United States. At this point the European institutions should take concrete initiatives – and I have not seen any – within the framework of Euro-Mediterranean relations, because the danger does not come from Islam but from the Iraqi regime, and also, despite all the difficulties, initiatives to re-launch the battered Middle East peace process. And since there has been reference to European history, that history shows that complacency, the failure to meet responsibilities in relation to despotic dictators, for whom expansionist ambitions are intrinsic, may be more comfortable in the short term and also more popular – there were no opinion polls in 1938 but now there are – but sooner or later they cost us dearly in terms of freedom and human lives. (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE
Madam President, as others have already said, these death sentences have absolutely nothing to do with the war on terrorism. However, that also demonstrates that we have a responsibility to wage that war. The United States also bears that responsibility within the international institutions, the United Nations and under international law. If you only fight terrorism – and that is unfortunately a danger that also exists in Washington – strictly by means of a coalition of the major powers, there is a risk that those powers will misuse that war on terror for their own ends: Moscow will use it against the Chechens and Beijing will use it against Tibet. We need to be fully aware that the sort of repression that has been practised in Tibet or in Chechnya is no way to fight terrorism, it will simply engender it. We were talking earlier on about mountain regions. A few decades back there were even bomb attacks here in the Community, in the South Tyrol, which is nowadays a peaceful model region of Europe of which we can be proud. There were even extremist movements in our European democracies. That sounds unlikely today, because by granting autonomy we have ensured that no one takes separatist or terrorist action. We now feel comfortable in the greater community of Europeans and regard ourselves as being at the heart of Europe. My message to the Chinese is therefore this: ‘Give the Tibetans autonomy, give them democracy, and give them human rights!’ That is the way to fight terrorism and separatism. That is a successful approach that will not lead to terrorism but will genuinely bring peace and ensure that peace will prevail in the world's most important and most historically precious mountain region, peace that can be a model for the entire world. The motion for a resolution before us has much to recommend it, but the wording is rather infelicitous, by which I mean the phrase ‘the Tibetan minority in China’. Of course, in comparison with China's massive population, we are all minorities. However, what we are talking about here is the great Tibetan people with its ancient world culture, which is a valuable heritage for mankind. We appeal to the Chinese to respect this people and its culture as full partners, just as we treat the Tibetans and Chinese as equals. (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, the incident with the Flash Airlines aircraft was indeed tragic and I happened to experience the tragedy of this incident personally, in that I was in France and saw the reactions of French society. I wish to point out that the European Parliament has good reason to feel satisfied about the fact that it has been aware of the issue of the safety of air transport for a long time now. Its stand on the question of the European Aviation Safety Agency, the EASA, is evidence of this awareness. We supported this endeavour right from the start and this year we voted in favour of all the items in the budget needed to staff this agency quickly. At the same time, in the Maes report on third country aircraft, which the Commission rightly took the initiative of promoting, Parliament took a strict approach from the outset, and I am delighted that Mrs de Palacio agreed today with the European Parliament's position on our differences with the Council on the conciliation procedure. It is very important, and I hope that the Council will take this on board, for the regulations introduced on this matter to be the right ones and for us to guarantee high safety standards, not just for our aircraft but also for third country aircraft flying to the European Union. Then, as you know, there is the safety issue which arose after the terrorist attack on 11 September. There are still problems here, but unfortunately, despite the talks held from time to time, it has proven impossible to address them correctly. I believe that, on the other side of the Atlantic, despite the fact that I understand their reaction, at the same time there is also an arrogant approach to Europe, an intention to deal with the problems unilaterally. I believe that we shall make it clear to the other side that we want to work together but, at the same time, we want to be on an equal footing with them, and the European Commission can help decidedly in this direction. IN THE CHAIR: MR VIDAL-QUADRAS ROCAVice-President

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, the outcome of the EU–Russia Summit was especially disappointing as regards human rights. The Prime Minister of Denmark, Mr Rasmussen, had the courage to remind Mr Putin that the conflict in Chechnya did not amount to a terrorism problem and that a political solution was needed. Mr Putin gave a frosty reply and that was as far as it went. When Europe had offered premature and uncalled–for congratulations on the use of banned chemical weapons on the hostages and hostage–takers in Moscow, it was not the moment to issue reprimands. Furthermore, the President of the Council had doubtless had his hands tied by his peers. No more was said about possible sanctions, which had been on the agenda since the summit of 1999 with Mr Yeltsin. Since that time, the situation in Chechnya has dramatically worsened, and the civilian population of the region is powerless in the face of the actions of the special forces. Torture, rape, extra–judicial executions and disappearances are everyday occurrences. Those responsible for violations of human rights and war crimes act with complete impunity. Mr President-in-Office of the Council, why have you not, together with the High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy and the Commission, at least followed up the specific request of Amnesty International to allow access for the humanitarian organisations to Chechnya, under threat of sanctions? Why have you not insisted on establishing free access for the Red Cross to those people who are rotting in prisons or holding centres, the gulags of today? Now that all our partnership agreements contain a clause on human rights, why has international humanitarian law yet again yielded in spectacular fashion to the strength and reason of State?

Political group: PSE
Mr President, I have requested the floor not for personal reasons but on behalf of the President of my group and in my capacity as Vice-President of that group, to say that I thought Mr Poettering’s speech was marvellous. I congratulate you. (Applause) I believed that the democratic parties had the legitimate concern of preparing for democratic elections. The accusation of electioneering applies to autocratic leaders, not to democratic leaders. I must say that Mr Berlusconi is electioneering in Spain at this very time. And I must say to Mr Poettering, in view of his assessment of this situation, that he must have read and shared the opinions of some of the characters in George Orwell’s Animal Farm, and that you must believe that all the European citizens are equal, but that some, Mr Berlusconi for example, are more equal than others. Because here the only thing that is certain is that a petition for waiver of immunity has been hidden in an office, in who knows what institution, for at least seven months, in a situation which affects elections about to take place in Italy... (The President cut the speaker off)

Political group: PSE
Mr President, we should not forget that the main, strategic objective of the Structural and Cohesion Funds and of their coordination is to achieve economic and social cohesion. We are obliged to participate in drafting directives and also in assessing their results. We are obliged to do so because we are the representatives of the citizens in a Europe of Citizens and not just in a Europe of States and of Regions. We feel that the Funds are a necessary but insufficient condition for achieving economic and social cohesion. We might be mistaken in using the gross domestic product per inhabitant as the sole indicator. Some speakers have already mentioned unemployment and the fall in population. We will have to study several indicators, which will enable us to see the current state of regional societies that are in a worse situation than others, and how they are evolving. It is clear from some of the reports that have been presented to Parliament’s plenary sitting today that Europe’s 25 most prosperous regions enjoy a level of unemployment which is five times lower than in the 25 least prosperous regions. This fact means that the European Parliament, the Commissioner and the Commission must act decisively and strategically. I agree that the European Parliament did not have the opportunity – or that it was not given the opportunity, as we had reached the end of the parliamentary term – to discuss the directives. I do not think, however, that this report has come too late. We need to consider it together, so that the new Objective 1 programmes and the plans for regional development, which have been drafted before the directives come into force, can be submitted for revision and proper assessment. We all agree that we should ask that, halfway through these programmes, when the assessment of the directives is made, Parliament should be given an equally influential role on the grounds that we are the citizens’ representatives. Our citizens cannot accept that the European Union takes decisions in a way that is, at least on the face of it, bureaucratic. They need to see the political dimension working, to see that officials accept their responsibilities and that there is communication with the citizens. This is what we are today asking the Commissioner for. I would like to think that, given his previous experience as a regional President, he will agree to propose indicators, and a strategy, which will favour economic and social cohesion and not just productivity.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, the European Institutions have made budgetary balance a priority, but this phrase, like all the calls for budgetary prudence, serves to conceal the fact that what we are reducing is budgetary expenditure intended for public services and social protection. At the same time, we are not using any of the expenditure for helping large employers in various ways. If the Member States, as well as the European institutions, stopped giving such huge amounts to large employers, the resultant savings would enable public services to be developed and would, at the same time, reduce unemployment through the consequent taking on of staff in public hospitals, transport and public education systems, whilst maintaining a surplus budget. Clearly, however, there is no likelihood of this happening, because the European institutions and the Member States exist to serve the large employers and not the majority of the population. Many items in the report attest to this. When, for example, it dares to express satisfaction with the fact that unemployment has fallen from 9.6% to 8%, this represents around 15 million men and women forced into poverty in a region which happens to be one of the wealthiest in the world. By the same token, the report gives its approval to anything that increases flexibility and competitiveness, especially of labour. It quite clearly acts as the spokesperson for interests of employers alone rather than for the whole of the working population. We shall, of course, be voting against this report.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Increased levels of unemployment and announcements of new waves of redundancies – that is what we have to show for five years of the European Employment Strategy. The European Union's restructuring policy does not create jobs, it restricts them, especially full-time, stable jobs, while so-called growth deprives millions of people of the right to work or offers them a poor substitute in the form of part-time employment, with all the financial and social consequences that has for family life. So celebrations are unjustified and do not reflect the real picture, which is that generalised, long-term unemployment – and we are talking decades here – is hovering around 10% and is accompanied by generalised, temporary, short-term forms of employment, for which employers may even be subsidised, in order to artificially reduce the figures by making several unemployed persons share one job. Active employment policies are being used as an excuse to subsidise big business while depriving families of even the most basic right to survival. The proposed 'employability' model may appear to reduce official unemployment statistics, but it does not reduce the fear, insecurity, unhappiness or poverty of working-class families. Pronouncements about combating poverty, full employment and so on are hypocritical and their only objective is to foster self-delusion among the working classes and take the edge off the social problems which the very policy of serving multinational interests creates. That is why we call on the workers to rally round and overturn this anti-grass roots policy.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, it is always helpful to have a debate before our first reading of the budget with the Council later this month, but the resolutions in front of us from Mr Podestà and Mr Färm highlight a substantive contradiction, at least for me and for my group. Firstly, on the one hand we have under-utilisation of funds, where clearly, with the balance recovered by Member States now amounting to EUR 15 billion for the 2001 financial year, as Mr Färm points out, there is a significant financial and political problem, especially as regards insufficient payments in the Structural Funds. However, as Mr Virrankoski said, there has of course been poor implementation of payment appropriations amounting to EUR 82 billion. Is this because of the matters Mrs Buitenweg raised about Member States not wanting to use these funds? Is it poor procedures? Is it simply rigidity? It could also be related to co-financing, where the monies are not available in the Member States, in which case we need to take some care about the next steps for agricultural policy, because we could find ourselves in some difficulty if we rely on Member States to implement programmes. Secondly, there is a contradiction between external policy and administrative policy. We are actually looking for funds to implement programmes decided by the Council or by our institution in the budgetary procedure. We know that Parliament has not actually approved the Afghanistan funding of EUR 1 billion and yet we see the Commission and the Council gaily going ahead, assuming that this will be the case. Therefore, in the light of these two very contradictory approaches, it seems to me and to my group very logical that we should ask the Commission for more flexibility in the way in which finance can be transferred from one part of the budget to the other, because on one side we have too little and on the other we have too much. Yet, we find the Socialist Group wants to delete paragraph 12. Their speaker should justify why they oppose such a logical approach.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, I would like to ask the representative of the Council what the general timetable is for deciding to establish planned agencies such as the Maritime Safety Agency and, in particular, the Food Safety Agency, and is the intention to take the decision on all of them in one go or separately for each agency?

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, Commissioner, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, I welcome this proposal which aims, with the assistance of legislation, to tackle the growing xenophobia and racism in Europe. This depressing development goes against everything the EU stands for: freedom, democracy, respect for human rights, the Rule of Law. I feel that Mr Ceyhun deserves great praise for his excellent work. It is vital to work together within the EU to strengthen the protection available to victims of xenophobic and racist crimes and to ensure that those responsible are punished and that we remove the loopholes in the law. It must not be possible for differences in legislation in the various Member States to be exploited by those who commit crimes. Racism and xenophobia must be tackled on a broad front, as happens in this report. Crimes must be punished and crimes involving xenophobia and racism must be punished even harder. Racism must be considered an aggravating factor when punishment is meted out. It is high time that we in this Parliament and the EU’s institutions sent out a clear and unambiguous message that we will never accept racist outrages occurring in our Europe. With the help of democracy, we must combat those who stir up their citizens to commit crimes. Our Europe must be a safe place for everyone, regardless of ethnic identity, race, religion or sexual orientation. This is not the case today. We know that many people in Europe currently fear for their own lives and for the safety of their families. They are afraid to go out. They feel threatened. This is totally unacceptable. This desire of ours to create a society for everyone, without racism and xenophobia – a desire which, while it may be a dream, is an important one to have – must not encroach upon the right of every individual, which is set out in the European Convention on Human Rights, also to be able to express himself freely in speech and writing. I therefore hope to see you support our Amendments Nos 24 and 25 which safeguard the freedom of expression of journalists, artists and others. Freedom of expression is fundamental and in principle must never be curtailed. In certain Member States, including my own, freedom of expression and freedom of the press are enshrined in the constitution. Naturally, threatening or insulting other people, particularly for racist reasons, can never be allowed. Nor, however, is it clear that punishment is justified in all circumstances. It is a question of balance. I believe that it is important to bring the matter out into the open to be debated. Once the issue sees the light of day, we can put it to rest. I am therefore a little doubtful about some of Mr Ceyhun’s proposals involving a ban on disseminating xenophobic material and about the proposals which in practice mean that membership of certain organisations may be criminalised. My doubt and my concerns in this case are, however, not great enough to stop me wholeheartedly supporting Mr Ceyhun’s proposal.

Political group: ELDR