GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Madam President, Trans-European Networks (TENs) are a bit like the Loch Ness monster of the European Union. Whenever the European economy is faring badly, we are entitled to a debate on TENs. The Commission, however, and the Council even more so, are behaving like an opera chorus. They are singing ‘Let us march, let us march’, while jumping up and down on the spot. One report on TENs follows another, but the projects adopted advance at the speed of a funeral cortege. The fact is that every economy lives by its infrastructures. Trade and the internal market need these cross-border networks. Europe is cruelly lacking investment in the railways, piggyback transport, motorways, waterways, ports and airports. We are lacking interconnected gas and electricity networks. Often, infrastructure decisions collide with ecological considerations. It is no longer politics that decide: it is ultimately the administrative courts. Sustainable development, however, cannot be achieved without economic and social development, full stop. Nor is the lack of transport infrastructures and the permanent traffic jams, the traffic congestion, in the interest of sustainable development. How can we implement the Lisbon strategy without consistent investment in infrastructure? What is more, these investments, as I have just said, are also in the interests of sustainable mobility. Madam President, Europe needs to give itself the resources to match its ambitions. It is not enough to make the European Investment Bank contribute; it does not have unlimited resources. Why not take up Jacques Delors' idea of funding TENs with a Community loan? Borrowing to invest, to create the conditions of future sustainable growth, should be an objective common to all true Europeans. Europe is suffocating under its contradictions. We manifest a will to become the most competitive economy in the world, but real policy gets lost in parochial considerations. We need stability, but without growth there will be neither stability nor full employment. The United States is much more pragmatic. The US federal deficit for the current year alone is equal to more than five European Union annual budgets. While the Americans are investing 3% of their GDP in infrastructure, we are hovering around a miserly 1%. The requirements for projects under way or planned are EUR 400 billion. The requirements identified by the Van Miert Group have been estimated at EUR 600 billion. Up to now, Community funding has been in the order of EUR 15 billion. Clearly, therefore, there is a huge gulf between the objectives announced and the actual efforts made.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, can the European Union continue to ignore the expectations of society, which has been deeply affected by the food crises we have experienced in recent years? Is it right for 80% of agricultural aid to be distributed among only 20% of farmers? Can Europe seriously be exonerated from the need to carry out an in-depth analysis of a policy that accounts for almost half of its budget, at a time when it is preparing to welcome 10 new countries? You were right, Commissioner, to prefer movement to the status quo, anticipation to a waiting game. Your reform is courageous, for it advocates, through decoupling, a break with the approach of providing incentives for production. It is ambitious in that it seeks to strengthen the multifunctional nature of European agriculture. It is relevant in terms of the future WTO appointments and the impending enlargement of Europe. However, I am afraid that it may also be unfair in that it is based exclusively on the situation in mainland Europe and does not give sufficient consideration to the diversity of regional situations, particularly as regards production in the outermost regions. These regions have not yet achieved the initial objective of the CAP, namely a degree of agricultural self-sufficiency. Their markets are far from being saturated. They need incentives to help develop their farms. If the proposed measures were automatically applied to the outermost regions, they would be an undeniable hindrance to the dynamism we have witnessed in recent years. It is not a question of putting the outermost regions in a bubble; we simply need to take account of their specific situations. The legal basis already exists, in Article 299(2); what we need now is the political will. The Parliamentary Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development has shouldered its responsibilities by adopting on 21 May an amendment, which I tabled with the aim of ensuring that the outermost regions are not subjected to automatic, systematic application of the reform. The Commission and the Council must now shoulder theirs. There is no doubt that we must learn from the lessons of the past and adapt our agricultural policy to the challenges of the twenty-first century, but it would be unacceptable to allow this reform, in the name of general principles, to sound the death knell for the Union’s most vulnerable farmers.

Political group: PSE
On behalf of the Italian Communists, I would like to express great dissatisfaction at the contents of the document, which was expected to define the strategic guidelines for Europe up until the year 2005. Employment: for many years now, the connection between economic growth and an increase in employment has not been borne out by reality, and yet, despite the fact that it has been proved to be useless, the same recipe is being put forward again as a solution to the acute problem of unemployment. And yet our President is a fine economist. Pensions: The document states that, ‘Member States must remain responsible for modernising social protection systems’, and yet the Commission itself intervened in the case of Italy, repeatedly calling for swift changes to the pension system to reduce rights and decrease pension payments. And yet President Prodi himself gave firm guidance to the Italian Government during those years and is therefore aware of the nature and extent of the sacrifices demanded of our fellow citizens and which they made in order to sign up to the euro, and he is aware of the major role played by Italy in European development. For this very reason, we cannot agree to cut pensions further. There is an agreement on this issue which provides for a review in 2001 and this must not take place one moment sooner. What is more, the relevant cost dynamic is completely under control. I would therefore ask the Commission to please refrain from taking this unacceptable ideological approach and making such declarations which create instability and uncertainty among the citizens. I referred to the case of Italy, not only because the President is very familiar with it, but because Community statistics (Eurostat) themselves reveal that not only has Italy’s welfare expenditure – currently 25.9% – been below the Community average (28.2%) since 1990, but that it has also been well below that of countries considered to be doing well, such as Germany (29.9%) and France (30.8%). Europe’s role: we first need to emphasise that Europe rejects war as an instrument for resolving international conflict: only then can we talk of the ‘military’ role of the Union. Agriculture and health: we see the issue differently from the Commission: in our view there are no consumers: there are only citizens who want to eat healthy food – products which are not designed for competitiveness but health, quality and respect for the environment. Moreover, these are factors which create employment.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Madam President, I do not need to emphasise the importance of the vote on this second railway package and, above all, the importance of guaranteeing that this package is also soon adopted by the Council. We all believe that we need to work to ensure that there is the necessary shift of demand for and burden on certain means of transport, road and air in particular, to avoid congestion and problems caused by excessive use, and subsequent overloading. It is, to some extent, a question of moving from intentions to facts and to specific proposals, guaranteeing competitive prices, safety, reliability and, above all, the provision of the infrastructure and the investment needed to optimise the available alternatives, beginning with the railways. Although it is necessary, I must honestly admit that I never thought that the opening up of the market and the processes of liberalisation would, in themselves, be the sole answer, a kind of a shortcut to a miracle. They have to be subject to certain conditions: if we remove ideological pretexts and inflexibility, then we must recognise that they can help and facilitate these processes. On certain conditions, of course: without a doubt, all aspects of safety, professionalism and the social protection that have to be provided for in the processes of opening up the markets and competition, are indispensable, precisely to avoid competition being achieved to the detriment of these factors and guarantees; in the same way, it is also necessary to increase the provision of universal services and services of public interest in order, once again, to prevent competition from concentrating investment and management interests solely in strong market areas where demand is high, disregarding the situations where the supply of services is crucial, rather, for encouraging and driving forward development processes, in other words to respond to what are actually inalienable needs for both freight and passenger transport services. Subject to these conditions, there must be fixed deadlines for liberalisation, although not too short, because it is only under these conditions that it is possible to guarantee private resources are contributed to infrastructure investment projects. Otherwise, they could be destined to be delayed because of the chronic difficulties that we have, as we know, in raising the necessary public funds to complete these processes. We need to guarantee the principle of reciprocity in this context, as stated in the amendments tabled before Parliament, because we believe that this will avoid distortion of the market, which has already occurred in other liberalisation processes. I hope that adequate solutions can be found which take into consideration these principles and choices in our negotiations with the Council too.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, your willingness to enter into a dialogue with the European Parliament has been well received here, and this is not surprising given the Portuguese Government’s vast experience of dialogue. If we examine the presidency’s objectives, which we recognise are ambitious, we can see various priorities, a good deal of dialogue and many dossiers to be opened and to be followed up. We are concerned to see fewer prospects of closing dossiers and attaining objectives, but we sincerely hope that the presidency will be a good one, for Europe, for its citizens and for the Portuguese. For Europe – which we want to help to build and strengthen, thus creating a Union in which everyone feels represented and with which they can identify, a Europe which is not just for the few or in which the big fish suffocate the small ones. If we are to achieve such a Europe, at a time when we are considering treaty amendments, we must once again make sure that the fact the presidency is held by a small country does not mean that it will be any worse or less efficient than when the presidency is held by the larger countries. We hope that the Portuguese Presidency will be good for the citizens of Europe who want Europe to address their problems and not just their bank accounts or consumer goods, and who want Europe to focus on safety, on fighting drugs, on combating crime, on controlling illegal immigration and on adopting measures to establish the area of freedom, security and justice. I am certain that you will agree with me, Mr Gama, when I express my confidence in the great competence and high calibre of the Portuguese Commissioner, António Vitorino, and I hope that the Council will be able to make concrete progress in the areas entrusted to it as measured against the scoreboard agreed in Tampere. I also hope that it will be good for the Portuguese who will remember the excellent job Portugal did when it held the Council Presidency for the first time, exactly eight years ago, and who hope that the Socialist government can live up to this record of prestige and efficiency.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, congratulations to the rapporteur. That has already been said. There are four areas I would like to touch on briefly. First, we want to make the international monetary system more stable, because financial stability is, among other things, a public good and a basic economic precondition for growth, employment and social justice – that is to say, a moral duty. Second, we demand not simply a reform of the IMF, we require of the public authorities the moral obligation to create optimum balance between the free play of markets and the need for them to be regulated in accordance with the fundamental principle of the eco-social market economy, and to guarantee a balance between the public and private sectors in public rescue measures in times of crisis. We demand of the Member States economic policies geared to growth and employment, and we demand the cancellation of debt, subject to appropriate economic and political conditions. Third, we begin at home. The euro is a stability currency even in the eyes of the world. The response of the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank after 11 September was one of stability in the face of the crisis. The Stability and Growth Pact is a European response. The Commission and the European Parliament have, by a majority, expressed their opposition to the Tobin tax, and the Liège resolutions include measures as correctives to globalisation. Fourth, we oppose measures to slow down economic development and ideologically motivated attempts to undo the Stability and Growth Pact or introduce the Tobin tax on its own, which create insecurity among those who work in the market. So I also regret that the Social Democrats' Amendment No 10 reinterprets the actual Liège resolution by inserting the Tobin tax. Remove this reinterpretation; in Liège we find ourselves.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, this own-initiative report commits various cardinal sins. The first of them concerns the principle of subsidiarity that underpins Community law. This motion for a resolution breaches this principle, which forces us not only to respect Members States’ exercising their autonomy in matters that fall within their competence but also to encourage them to do so and to exclude illegitimate interference in the internal jurisdiction of each State. The European Union must abstain from intervening in a matter that falls within the competence of the Member States. It is widely known and quite clear that this report addresses issues that do not fall within the scope of the European Union’s competences, and interferes particularly in policies of health and justice. Another of the cardinal sins concerns the serious fact that this proposal deliberately and flagrantly disregards the will of the citizens, expressed freely and democratically in the referenda on the decriminalisation of abortion held in some Members States, such as Portugal, for example. The aim of approving this proposal is to create a means of pressure once again to place the discussion on the voluntary termination of a pregnancy on the political agenda of some Members States. This will furthermore have the perverse consequence of creating suspicion amongst the citizens of Members States and also of the candidate countries, and this report is thereby doing a disservice to the European Union. The European Union is an original political model founded on cultural diversity and on respect for the historical and ethical heritage of each of the nations that it comprises. European integration must give priority to these values. Deepening the European spirit must involve respect for differences and for strengthening the principle that decisions must be taken at the closest possible level to the citizens of the Union. These two requirements are missing from the report that we are today debating. Consequently, for these reasons, we do not accept this proposal and have no alternative but to vote against it. I wish lastly to pay tribute to the commitment of Emilia Müller, the shadow rapporteur for this controversial report, who spared no effort to try to improve it.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, we can only obtain safe and healthy food by taking account of the whole chain, that is to say the way in which we cultivate our crops, the soil we grow them in and the seed we use, as well as the conditions in which we breed our animals and the nutrition and water we give them. Residual poison, pollution, poor animal husbandry and poor hygiene will result sooner or later in sick animals and, consequently, also in an increase in illnesses among human beings. Unfortunately, a lot of inherited knowledge and farmers’ lore has been lost in industrial agriculture, where animals have been reduced to production units and commodities. I am convinced that, with ecological agriculture, we should not have had the major problems we have today. The situation is now as we find it. The two proposals we are discussing today, concerning foreign substances and products in animal feed and official control of these, are therefore necessary and welcome. These proposals also mean a step towards a complete package of measures in favour of food safety. I want to congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Paulsen, on the consistent way in which she has worked to improve the Commission’s text and on the insightful knowledge she has displayed. I am pleased that the Group of the European People’s Party and have withdrawn the amendments concerning the problems associated with dilution. That saves me a very great deal of speaking time. However, it would be unfortunate if, for example, Amendments 39 and 40 were adopted, for this would mean that the opportunities for Member States to intervene quickly to combat newly discovered dangers would disappear. Experience has of course shown that it is precisely this that we need to do. We need to act incredibly quickly because people’s health is at stake. We must also constantly bear the precautionary principle in mind. I support the rapporteur’s proposals but shall vote against the amendments tabled by the Group of the European People’s Party and .

Political group: Verts-ALE
Clearly the plans for the future of the EU are predicated on the intention of serving the interests of big business even better and consolidating the new imperialist order. Unbridled neo-liberalist policies are being pushed forward, with all that this implies for the people. We therefore need greater, more widespread and more proactive reaction on the part of our workers and society in general in order to put a halt to this policy and bring about a radical change of direction. Prospects for militarising Europe, curtailing national independence and grass-roots sovereignty, restricting the fundamental social and democratic rights of our citizens and launching an all-out attack on the workers' movement and standard of living, are still the core objectives of the arrangements which will be pursued by the European Council in Laeken and then later by the Intergovernmental Conference. The broad involvement of national and European agencies being proposed does nothing to reverse or overturn this policy; on the contrary, it ensures that they will be on board to aid and abet its implementation. The involvement of all these agencies does nothing to change the substance of the debate, nor does it provide any basic opportunity to intervene, in that, apart from anything else, it will have merely advisory rather than decision-making powers. On the other hand, it gives the sovereign powers the chance to proceed with the implementation of their plans with some semblance of legal and democratic authority. An attempt is being made to head off the expected mass demonstrations which accompanied previous revisions of the Treaties in Maastricht, Amsterdam and Nice, which is why the method used for the so-called ‘Charter of Rights’ is being used here again. However, the results of this method have been tested in practice and proved that broader involvement did not help to consolidate or widen individual and social rights in line with modern-day requirements; on the contrary, these rights were curtailed in line with the dictat of big business, giving rise to serious grass-roots reaction. The workers are fighting and will continue to fight to limit the adverse impact of these plans and decisions and every possible means will be used for this fight. However, they will not be duped or misled, their fight is getting stronger and stronger and their counter-attack for a different Europe, for different, grass-roots institutions which serve their interests and bring about peace and collaboration based on mutual benefits and real rather than sham respect for all their individual and collective rights is becoming more and more substantial and dynamic.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, what worries us most is the low degree of implementation of Structural Fund payments. The worst thing that could happen would be for the contributions to lose support because they are not spent and that we should believe that our intended objectives do not correspond to the needs of those who have to spend them. In the face of this political failing, we can only act by saying that the innocent must not pay for the sins of the guilty and that not all of the Structural Funds are badly managed. I am pleased that the Community initiatives, either Objectives 1 and 2 or the Cohesion Fund, have seen a higher degree of implementation. I am also pleased that the majority of countries do their duties properly, which demonstrates that the procedural measures are easy to comply with, although not all of the countries are as diligent in complying with them. Therefore, the fact that the Structural Funds are not being implemented as we would have liked does not mean that we must spend on other headings, but that we must seriously apply the N+2 commitment. It is obvious that if the countries or regions which have not fulfilled the N+2 clause see that the Funds are returned to them, they will have no incentive to change their attitude. The States and regions which do not use the N+2 must definitively lose their contributions, in favour of those other bodies, regions or States which are going to use them. Therefore, the figure for non-implementation is not serious; our aim must be for the responsibility for non-implementation to fall to those who have caused it. In this respect, I welcome Commissioner Barnier’s efforts to put things in order.

Political group: PPE-DE