GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
That was a very full and helpful reply, Commissioner. In relation to your comment that you could not necessarily infer the issues in my question, I should like to point out that I was directly quoting the head of a police intelligence service in London, who was commenting on the effects of Turkish heroin in the UK. As a supplementary, I should like to ask you about the 'small Dublin group' to be set up in Ankara. In your own words, could you define that term for me?

Political group: ELDR
Plugging the welfare gap is crucial for attaining stability and peace in the world. More development aid is not enough but, without extra funding, poverty cannot be eradicated. Affordable schooling and health care must enable people to develop the economy themselves and attract foreign capital. In order to achieve the UN development objectives, aid has to be doubled. Most donors still give far less than the agreed 0.7% of their GNP. America could easily contribute far more, but only has an eye for increasing its military expenditure. Many European partners too are still failing to meet the mark. The problems involved in granting aid should not be an excuse for doing too little. Learning from experience and improved international coordination can make development cooperation more effective. Aid must help set up good governance, democratic structures and a well-functioning market economy. Access to the global market is essential for developing countries. Insupportable debts must be substantially lowered, and the Debt Repayment Fund must be adequate for this. Poverty, Mr President, is the breeding ground for violence and terrorism. More aid is not only a humanitarian necessity, but also an absolute condition for attaining stability and peace in the world. (Applause)

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, this is the year in which it was planned to conclude the programme laid down at the Tampere European Council. In addition, in the short time remaining we need to integrate the ten new states into this objective. The objective remains unfixed. We have repeatedly expressed Parliament’s concerns about the integration of the Tampere objectives in the acceding countries. As regards the internal situation, I am very concerned at the length of list 4 at this late stage. This is the list awaiting decision by the legislator. It contains the directive concerning conditions of entry and stay in the European Union for reasons of work or study. It also contains the decision to be taken on granting asylum status and the minimum conditions for people to request asylum in Europe. The statute of long-term residents and the directive on family reunification should also be on the list. Although a decision has been taken on the latter there are countless exceptions to it, to the extent that there is really nothing to choose between having this directive and having fifteen different sets of legislation. True, this is a problem for the Council. Nonetheless, it is also the Commission’s responsibility to defend the programme it has itself proposed and to defend it strongly. The programme is good, consistent and global. The Commission must defend it as Mr Prodi stated a few weeks ago before the House when he spoke following the tragedy of the victims in Italy. Sadly, that tragedy was repeated in Spain. Mr Prodi, you can count on our support in defending the programme before the Council. The Council is currently exerting strong pressure to establish disjointed measures regarding what it terms illegal immigration. These measures are doomed to failure. I am not making an ideological statement. Rather, I am stating it is clearly impossible to take account only of the point of view of ministers responsible for home affairs in as complex and global an issue as immigration. I urge you to put immigration in its broadest sense on the agenda for relations with our neighbours. It has to be a factor in achieving stability and prosperity. Immigration also needs to be linked to employment, as has already been the case. You can count on our support over this. There is also an extensive list of decisions outstanding in the field of cooperation over criminal issues. Curiously, that list contains, amongst others, the directives on the protection of the Community’s interests and combating people trafficking. As I said, this is curious. I appeal to you to deal with these issues as a matter of priority. Once again, you can rely on Parliament’s support.

Political group: PSE
draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market. – Mr President, the initiative to create the '.EU' Domain name will be a necessary boost to expansion in the e-economy. We know that the key brake on this expansion is the lack of confidence, particularly amongst consumers. A European TLD, therefore, should be synonymous with a zone of e-confidence. In addition it should allow European companies to ensure their visibility and presence on the European stage. As Mrs Flesch said, we have worked very closely on this report. We have jointly made some very important recommendations. They give greater clarity to the text and they spell out in detail the role the registry should perform. I have concentrated in my committee mainly on the issues of the internal market, intellectual property aspects and the general policy framework. Let me highlight some of the amendments. The idea of Amendment No 36 was that the registry should adopt terms and conditions to incorporate an accredited code of conduct for online trading and therefore give businesses the opportunity to join an accredited online extra-judicial dispute resolution scheme. This will respond to business concerns to see added value to '.EU' Domain names and will again create this zone of e-consumer confidence in line with the Lisbon conclusions. While registration should generally be on a first-come, first-served principle, we have nonetheless proposed that rightholders, who have prior rights in law and public policy, should have the opportunity to pre-register. We have tried to address the growing problem of cyber squatting by asking the registry to run a mediation and arbitration service, either free or on a cost-recovery basis to deal with speculative and abusive registration of domain names. We are proposing the setting up of a policy advisory committee, as is the practice in country domain names, to assist in dealing with what can be registered at top level. Commissioner, we understand the need to make progress on the establishment of '.EU' and the need to ensure we respect the principles of the Internet world, namely self-regulation and self-management. But it is important to get the principles right from the outset, to ensure success, and that is why we have spelt this out in detail. Mrs Flesch and I had excellent cooperation. We now look forward to similar cooperation with the Council and Commission. We hope they will seriously consider our recommendations, and that we can come to a speedy decision to enable '.EU' to get off to a running start as soon as possible.

Political group: PSE
I voted against this report because the record of the Romanian Government in child care and disabilities rights remains totally unacceptable.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, Commissioner, I would like to begin by thanking Mr Bayona for the excellent work he has done on the presentation of this discharge of the general budget for 2002. This is an extremely important report which offers many suggestions that must be taken into account and in which, regrettably, the issue that has concerned us most over recent years in the Committee on Budgetary Control remains outstanding: fraud in Eurostat. This is why our group, the Group of the European Peoples’ Party , with the support of the other groups, has promoted a resolution on this issue to make it clear before the end of this legislature that Parliament views this as a serious matter, that we are not satisfied with what the Commission has done so far, although we recognise it has made a great effort, but we want to know why this fraud took place and what mechanisms can prevent it from happening again in the future. That is our main interest. We do not want to get bogged down in other types of issue. We want an end to such fraud. As a parliamentary committee, we have a particular interest in auditing management and, fundamentally, in combating fraud. I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate our Chairman, Diemut R. Theato, on the excellent work he has done leading a very difficult committee, the Committee on Budgetary Control. She has been able to lead a very diverse team, from very different groups, which at the end of this legislature has been able to find the appropriate moment to feel like a team, a team in which we agree more than we disagree and in which we are inspired by a common interest, which is that the Commission, the whole of the European Union, should function better and better, that it should spend more efficiently, that there should be the best possible control of spending for the benefit of the citizens. If the President will allow me, I would like to refer very briefly to the report by Mr van Hulten on Parliament. I agree with my fellow Members that it is a good report and that amongst all of us we have managed to produce a text which I believe will be widely supported tomorrow.

Political group: PPE-DE
This proposal comes in the wake of two other initiatives – public access to environmental information and public participation in respect of the drawing up of certain plans and programmes relating to the environment – intended to contribute to the implementation of the Århus Convention of the Economic Commission for Europe of the United Nations (UN/ECE) on Access to Information, Public Participation and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters. The European Parliament report contains some aspects that I welcome, in particular expanding the definition of ‘qualified entity’ (specifically to cover local authorities), the possibility of involving private organisations, as it states, ‘to respond to the increasing privatisation of traditionally public functions’, or the guarantees for the participation of bodies that lack the financial ability to bear the costs. This is an instrument of last resort, which could contribute to reinforcing the action undertaken by communities in order to protect their living conditions and the environment in which they live.

Political group: GUE-NGL
I welcome Mr Papayannakis’ report on proposals for an EU-wide compulsory identification system for cows and the labelling of beef and beef products. The main aim of the new regulation is to enable consumers to trace the source of the meat they buy right back to the animal. This system should enable any potential threats to human health to be tackled early and effectively. I support the rapporteur in stressing that the same rules must be applied to imported beef from non-EU countries and, in cases where not all information is available, a clear indication to that effect should be provided. Mr Papayannakis is right to insist that labels mention antibiotics and stimulants that have been administered and to oppose derogation from the regulation for minced beef, beef trimmings or cut beef. Properly applied this regulation will go a long way to enhance the reputation, quality and safety of EU beef – good news for consumers and producers!

Political group: PSE
Madam President, on Wednesday, we are going to debate an item on cooperation between the European Union and the United States in the fight against terrorism. However, we discovered – on the Internet, in fact – that this debate is going to be based on an exchange of letters between a representative of Mr Bush – a Mr Forster, I believe – and Mr Prodi. Parliament does not have a copy of these letters, although we can read them on the Internet, in which the United States government demands Europe take forty or so measures to cooperate with the fight against terrorism. It also appears – we can only say ‘it appears’ as we have no documents to refer to – that Mr Prodi sent a reply to the United States government at the end of November. I think that, for this slightly rushed debate to be held in more favourable conditions – the debate is, however, scheduled for Wednesday – it would be helpful for Parliament to obtain a copy of the letter that the United States government sent to Mr Prodi and Mr Prodi’s reply. That is the request I would like to make.

Political group: GUE-NGL
I would like to take up the subject just touched upon by the previous speaker, namely the transatlantic aspects of telecoms liberalisation and particularly paragraph 6 and 7 of the draft resolution, which refers to the unfortunate initiative by Senator Hollings to restrict the transfer of licences to telecoms companies which are more than 25% state-owned. This seems an ironic lurch towards a protectionist position at the very time when here in Europe and in this Parliament we are about to embark upon a debate on the latest raft of measures which, in my view, would make the European Union telecoms market the most liberalised and the most open market in the world going way beyond many if not all of the commitments into which we entered in GATT and the WTO. This is politically if not technically an unbalanced situation which merits the attention of this House. Whilst I have some philosophical sympathy with Senator Hollings and his colleagues who consider that state-owned companies have some hidden and sometimes explicit advantages over their privately-owned competitors, the way in which Congress in the United States is trying to address this issue is contrary to both the spirit and the letter of US multilateral commitments. I would ask fellow Members, when considering the latest raft of telecoms measures in the weeks to come, not to allow this to go unnoticed or for that matter unchallenged.

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, first of all, I would like to say thank you very much to the Commission and to the rapporteur for the work they have done and for their excellent cooperation. Space exploration is, of course, a high technology field, which operates years ahead of its time in many areas and which is developing applications now that will only be available to the bulk of the population in ten or fifteen years’ time. Europe is in competition in this field with countries such as the USA, which is number one of course, but also with Asian countries and Russia. We must see that Europe strengthens its position in this strategic field and also takes a leading role. One positive example in this respect is of course the Airbus, with which we are all familiar, and which is responsible, on account of years of cooperation between the States and industries, for the fact that we now play a leading role in the construction of civilian aircraft and already have a market share of 50% in many segments. Therefore, this is not just about space exploration itself but about how competitive Europe is going to be in the future. A number of examples have, in fact, been mentioned: earth observation, telecommunications, environmental protection, security. It is not just about practical applications but also, as you have already mentioned, about research. I would like to highlight three points that I consider to be important. One is the future cooperation between the ESA, the European Union and also the Member States. We should, of course, give the Member States the latitude they need, in keeping with the terms of subsidiarity. However, there is also a case for improving coordination between the Member States, the ESA and the EU, precisely because the work undertaken in this sector is so capital-intensive. We also need to establish an opposite number for industry. Industry is undergoing a consolidation process. There are an ever-increasing number of public private partnerships in this sector. That is why there is an urgent need for industry to have a point of contact, someone with whom it can enter into dialogue, rather than running itself into the ground. My second point relates to future commercialisation. We must ensure that the products, the applications from space exploration, are also used in practical applications for consumers in the future. We must create new opportunities in this respect, so as to enable small- and medium-sized companies, and start-up companies, in particular, to practise innovation. GALILEO is a key word here. Of course, we are having to compete with the American GPS system, but I believe that if we do more to help commercialisation on its way, then we will see more innovation across the board. The third important point relates to the WEU, external security. The Kosovo conflict brought home to us only too clearly the implications of not having our own information system. Hence we should keep this option open if the WEU is incorporated into the EU. Having our own foreign and security policy means having our own information facilities too. We should not foreclose this option but always keep it in mind.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, Commissioner, I believe that many people must have been rather anxious when Mr Harbour said he wanted to see a review of the directive within 18 months. So, is there to be a return to all that lobbying? Is it not all a bit too soon? Everything that can be said about the directive has already been said. It is therefore a little difficult to begin to speak now. I nonetheless want to express my warm thanks to our wonderful rapporteur. I also want to say that the official line of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party at first reading was more balanced than that of the parliamentary majority. We may therefore also consider that essential parts of the common position need to be changed. At first reading, we were concerned that the parliamentary majority was jeopardising the Internet’s function and that there was a danger of creating a system which also made it unattractive to have material on the Net in Europe. The results of the Human Genome Project have been published on the Net in the last few days, partly in the journal, Nature and partly in the journal, Science. Via Nature, everyone can access the material but, via Science, it can only be accessed by paying SEK 3 million. That is, of course, a protection of copyright. But is it the same thing as promoting the spread of science and knowledge? Where is the right balance to be found? This is something I believe we should reflect upon when we adopt a position on the directive. I also want to point out once again that our group’s official position now is to have as few amendments as possible. The common position is a fragile compromise which must not be disturbed. Otherwise, we might not get the WIPO Treaty signed, which is of course the most important thing.

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, unlike many others who will be speaking this afternoon, I do not have many constituents who suffered horrendously from flooding in the UK. Luckily, London escaped with small-scale floods, partly from rivers we had forgotten still existed because we run them through culverts. We have, however, contributed to the causes of these floods of which those in Western Europe are only the latest result of a series of extreme and fluctuating weather conditions. This, of course, will be of small consolation to those living with filthy water running through their houses and who might be facing enormous financial loss. I agree that we need to do all that we can to assist them, but we would help most by changing the situation that has caused their misery and that of countless others throughout the world. Locally, we can stop covering flood plain and water meadows with concrete. We can change our pattern of agricultural production and we can use strategic environmental impact assessment to enable us to work with nature rather than assuming we can conquer it. In global terms, we know our use of fossil fuel is profligate and we have not taken sufficient steps to reduce the climate-change gases we produce. We have an opportunity to make progress at The Hague in the discussions there this week and next. We have to implement the agreements we have already reached, but we also have to do as the Treaty states and integrate the environmental perspective into all areas of Union policy and practice, and Member States must be prepared to do this as well. We have to move away from running our economies as if cheap fossil fuel is a good thing. We have to pay the full price for these fuels and we have to shift to a low-carbon economy. For once, I can agree with the words of the British Prime Minister on this and I now await his actions with eagerness. The EU has a wonderful opportunity to really take a lead in this change to an ecologically sustainable society where we will not have to deal with floods partly caused by our own inability to face up to the consequences of our own actions.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, if the Community wants to take seriously the task of protecting the environment, it cannot and must not limit itself to the mere enactment of protection standards. It must also make it its business to see that the relevant regulations are complied with. If the machinery of mere sanctions is not sufficient, it must be possible to bring the big stick of the criminal law to bear – only, of course, in important and exceptional cases and with due regard for the division of secondary responsibilities, both in matters of environmental protection and – indeed, above all – in matters of criminal law. Thus far, almost all the groups in this House approve this Commission proposal and the amendments to it by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, for which we can warmly thank the House's rapporteur, Mrs Oomen-Ruijten. Some of us fear that this proposal opens the door too wide, paving the way for uniform European law on the environment and perhaps eventually even for a European environmental agency with powers comparable to those of the FBI. Such concerns are groundless. None of these things is envisaged. The right tool has been chosen – a directive to be transposed by the Member States – and an array of amendments ensures that it does not trespass upon the core area of the competence of the State and of the civil and criminal courts. These are virtually the words used by Amendment No 30, which makes explicit reference to extradition, for example, being envisaged only where there is provision for it in the Member State's own legislation. By this modus operandi, we are using the right instruments in pursuit of an important Community objective. The proposals made by Mrs Oomen-Ruijten and the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy should therefore be approved.

Political group: PPE-DE
The fight against poverty can only be won if we use natural resources in a responsible manner. More than two billion people are deprived of modern forms of energy and more than one billion people have no clean drinking water. Agricultural production is on the decline while the number of mouths to be fed is increasing. Bio-diversity would have been a thousand times greater if man had not interfered with nature, and the link between a polluted environment and health is evident. Rio’s political framework was sound, but its execution poor. Over the past ten years, official development aid for nature and the environment even took a serious blow and there is hardly any evidence of good governance. At the start of this century, the world leaders are given another chance, but Johannesburg can only succeed if specific implementing programmes are drafted with concrete pledges to match. Whoever declares war on poverty must make peace with nature.

Political group: ELDR