GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Mr President, a number of speakers tonight have mentioned the issue of the best available technology. I cannot understand the reluctance to accept this. It really is an essential instrument. If we are genuine about wanting to encourage firms to improve environmental policy and environmental performance, then it is necessary that the best available technology should be encouraged. It makes no sense to me whatsoever to be reluctant to promote that. If the best available technology is there, then the firm should be encouraged to use it. We are never going to make any advances otherwise. This is a voluntary scheme, but if firms genuinely want to improve their environmental policy and their environmental performance then any encouragement in that direction should be welcomed. So far as the arguments against the best available technology are concerned, they do not stand up to scrutiny. It is essential that this element, and the amendments in relation to best available technology, be supported by Parliament. I would urge the Commission, too, to take this on board. If we are serious about trying to encourage firms in the right direction then we have to encourage the best available technology.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market has carefully considered the White Paper on food safety. It reached conclusions similar to those of the committee responsible. We also agree with the Commission's acknowledgement that in the interest of the public, food safety should be given particularly high priority. The Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights accordingly made a raft of proposals which are also included in the Bowis report before us. In view of the limited time available, I propose to cover just two key points. First, there is no doubt that legal provisions in the field of food safety and animal feed safety need to be simplified. We are therefore looking to the European Commission to put forward a basic legal framework. Within this framework, the corresponding legal instruments need to be systematically put in place in such a way that health protection stands out as the most important objective. Second, the European public are right to demand that their health be given top priority. Furthermore, they are right to demand that they have an important say, through their Parliament, when food and animal feed safety with a view to protecting their health is at stake. That is why the envisaged European Food Safety Agency can only have Articles 95 and 152 of the EC Treaty as its legal basis, with special attention being paid to its powers.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, I cannot tell you how excited I am to be here this evening to talk on behalf of the Group on this subject. I can see that it is a subject that brings great excitement to the rest of the parliamentarians and indeed the massive audience that we have here tonight. One actually wonders whether these late-night sessions put our European taxpayers’ money to good use. I shall bend over backwards to do my bit and I will start by giving thanks to the rapporteur for all the work he has put into this. I welcome the fact that the new Financial Regulation gives us the power to scrutinise these agencies’ accounts and I also welcome the cooperative way in which they all worked with the European Parliament in this process. Because of this autonomy from the normal management framework of the Commission, the choice of director, I believe, is a crucially important one. The appointment must be by open process and must involve the European Parliament. Indeed, Parliament should have the right to give its assent to such appointments and that is why the Group will vote to reject the Liberal amendment. Although it contains some interesting ideas about the structure of hearings in the Parliament, it only proposes to give the European Parliament consultative status. The PPE part of the Group is in favour of discharge for the agencies for numerous reasons, many of which I do not understand, considering in general terms that the state of the Commission’s accounts is just a pile of pants – I am using colloquialisms to give the interpreters a test at this time in the evening. Although the bulk of the PPE Group is for discharge, there are, however, some concerns that we would like to lay on the table for the future. We want to ensure that there will always be the highest management standards, in particular by these agencies cooperating fully with OLAF, by sharing best practice amongst themselves – because many of the management challenges are very similar – and by ensuring that their boards are an effective instrument to hold management to account and are not just a bureaucratic and cosmetic gesture. Some boards are already too big, especially that of the Agency for Safety and Health at Work, and enlargement risks making this worse. If boards become too big to assume their responsibilities in practice, agencies become vulnerable to become private fiefdoms – an example of which we have seen in Eurostat. We would like to see people cooperating closely to avoid duplication – for example, the Agency for Safety and Health at Work and the Foundation for the Improvement of Working and Living Conditions. I think the Commission should look at this. The highest standards of financial management should be ensured in particular by strengthening internal audit capacities. We would like to see the European Court of Auditors conducting more checks. I thank the rapporteur for all his work. The British Conservative delegation – the hopefully ever-growing DE – will not be voting to grant discharge, but the PPE will be doing so, and we thank you for all your work.

Political group: PPE-DE
Everyone is in agreement about the disappointing results of the last IGC, which are symptomatic of the limitations of the purely intergovernmental approach. The Heads of State and Government have in any case admitted this, in the Declaration on the future of the Union, which forms part of the annex to the Treaty. This finding has led the Committee on Constitutional Affairs to demand that the convocation of the new IGC (responsible for carrying out the next revision of the Treaties) should be based on a fundamentally different process, a process which is open and transparent. It proposes to take its inspiration from the effective and universally applauded method which enabled the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union to be created. It would, therefore, be a matter of bringing together a convention that would be composed of Members of the European Parliament, members of national parliaments, members of the Commission and members of the governments of Member States. It would start meeting at the beginning of 2002, and would have the task of submitting to the IGC (to be held during the second half of 2003), a ‘constitutional proposal’ based on the results of a wide-ranging public debate. This constitutional process would have to result in the adoption of an EU Constitution. In addition, the report launches an appeal to national parliaments, urging them to undertake to support the idea of the convocation of such a convention when they are called upon to take a decision on the Treaty of Nice. Although the Treaty of Nice has given much cause for dissatisfaction, it has, nonetheless, removed the last formal obstacle to enlargement. Having said that, the accession of new Member States requires an in-depth revision of the way our institutions function, because those institutions have almost been brought to a standstill already, when we have only fifteen Member States. The debate is underway. Several political personalities have had an opportunity to make their contribution, but we must involve the greatest possible range of actors, together with all the citizens of Europe. I shall end by emphasising the fact that the Charter of Fundamental Rights should be integrated into the Treaty so as to make it obligatory. This would give a strong political signal to our fellow-citizens. In effect, we now have three years to create, finally, the institutions that will guarantee ‘democracy’, transparency and citizenship at the service of a strong European social plan.

Political group: PSE
I very much welcome the Commissioner's remarks and the fact that he says the Commission is doing everything possible to lessen the number of unsafe abortions taking place in the world, and indeed to reduce the need for abortions by giving and encouraging access to family planning and reproductive health matters. I agree with him that there are a large number of NGOs doing sterling work. Would he agree with me that women have a right to choose how they organise their lives? Abortion should of course be the last resort, but it is my belief that sometimes the teaching and doctrine of the Catholic church and its refusal to countenance family planning have done untold damage to the lives of millions of women in some of the poorest countries of the world. I hope that on this issue and related matters we can move forward as a result of the response by the Commission, and help reduce the number of abortions, by giving women access to the services they wish, should they wish them.

Political group: PSE
I would firstly like to congratulate Mr Berenguer Fuster on his work and on his report and then say what great benefit could be derived from a European Parliament resolution which seeks to encourage employment and which recognises the need for State aid. The report says that unemployment is too high. I would add that it is a tragedy and a real disease into which we must channel all our energies! It is perfectly legitimate to use State aid to support a number of measures to combat unemployment and encourage employment. It was, incidentally, totally unacceptable to associate aid with increased labour market activity. However, since the right-wing Members voted in favour of the report, my colleagues from the Delegation of the Republican, Radical and Citizens’ and I had to vote against the motion.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, I am speaking not as a woman, but as my group’s representative. You too, Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, spoke as chairman of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development. Women make up some 40% of the fifteen million people who work in agriculture in the EU, and run one in every five farms – around 1.3 million – which, apart from a mere 3% larger ones, are small and medium-sized operations. Mrs Kratsa-Tsagaropoulou’s report gives more detailed information on this. Although, of all the Community’s policies, the CAP is far and away the most highly developed, there is still a positively criminal neglect of gender mainstreaming. The consequence of this is that there is scarcely any visible sign of women in rural areas enjoying equal status and equal rights. Although a number of instruments have been devised, any visible breakthrough in the CAP is still a long way in the future. Even though, in my view, the reform of agricultural policy left the fields strewn with dead lobbyists, it does have a very apparent shortcoming in that women have not managed to get the systematic promotion of women in agriculture accepted. Especially painful though that is, it is primarily in the restructuring of rural areas in the candidate countries in Central and Eastern Europe that even greater pain will be felt. What is on our minds is the new working arrangements that have to be devised. We are thinking about facilities that improve the balance between working life and family life, as well as about childcare facilities, and the provision of care for disabled and older people. We are thinking about the need to further develop rural tourism, and about how to promote alternative energies, and regional marketing cycles. These may be only ad hoc approaches, but they have added to the range of culture on offer. Women have eventually found a small niche in all this and seized an opportunity, but I think of the state of Bavaria, from which I come and which the President knows well – there, in 2002, EUR 17 million from the rural development programme were not allocated, which – if we add in the co-financed sums that could have been used for specific projects, including for women – means that a total of EUR 34 million could not be paid out. As regards many of the available resources, we still have to exert pressure on the Member States, and so I ask the Commission, when monitoring the programmes’ operation, to pay much closer attention to the way in which gender mainstreaming is actually implemented, so that it does not remain merely a topic for pious utterances. My group has endorsed Mrs Kratsa-Tsagaropoulou’s report. We have tabled amendments in the hope of extending it to cover the fisheries sector, in which a very large number of women work. I speak also on behalf of the rapporteur when I ask the House to support us in seeking this, and I appeal to the Commission to include this dimension. (Applause)

Political group: PSE
I believe this is an excellent and very wise report, much like the rapporteur. I am personally in full agreement with this report, because I believe it takes the perfect approach. However, I have not taken part in the vote – despite agreeing personally with the contents of the report – owing to my appointment as a representative of the President of the Spanish Government in the Convention. Not because I believe there is any incompatibility – which there is not: either legal, material, ethical or any other – but, quite the opposite: the status of MEP – which I share with two other Members who have also been appointed by two other Heads of State and Government, in Greece and Luxembourg – gives added value to the Convention, which is a joint task and not one of opposition. Nevertheless, also for personal reasons, which are much more symbolic or aesthetic, if you like, Mr President, I have preferred not to participate in the determination of an approach which will undoubtedly serve as a basis for the position taken by Parliament’s delegation in the Convention. Although there is no incompatibility of any type, I would like it to be noted that my blank vote is purely intended to reflect the fact that I was present.

Political group: PPE-DE
Ladies and gentlemen, as we have been told by the Council representatives, the amendments adopted by Parliament and included in the text have improved the draft regulation. However, this is still unacceptable to us as it stigmatises third country nationals and tends to criminalise them. Given that we are now discussing a Charter of Fundamental Rights and yesterday, for instance, a report on human rights, could we really live within a fortress Europe outside, or even inside, which rights might be being violated? Moreover, this draft regulation concerns us basically because we feel that it is not needed yet. It is, we feel, putting the cart before the horse. We are using and establishing instruments before we have developed a proper harmonised policy on the right to freedom of movement, the right to live as a family and the right of asylum. We should start by harmonising this policy. We can look at the instruments for implementation and control after that. Finally, a third point which particularly concerns us is the dismissal of Parliament’s opinion. This raises a vital question about the democratic credit granted to the Members of the European Parliament. It is a shame that we are currently being given the impression that we serve no useful purpose. We are told that this is just a case of abstention but this is actually the norm as Members’ opinions are not being taken into account. To conclude, the establishment of this area of freedom, security and justice needs instruments. Yet this security can be achieved only if there is real justice, and freedom can be achieved only if we have rights which are respected.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, Commissioner, honourable Members, I should like to start by thanking Mr Parish for his serious analysis of the situation of young farmers in Europe. I ask you, what shall we do when there is no one to take over our farms? Structural change is important and it is right, but that should not result in a mass exodus from the farming profession. If we want farming to have a future in Europe, then we must secure its succession. We are in favour of a multi-functional farming model, i.e. a model whereby farmers are not just responsible for producing food and a large part of their work benefits society as a whole, a society which can take pleasure in seeing nature unspoiled and enjoy rural areas which are worth living in. The agricultural policy and the policy for the countryside as a whole lives for and from its inhabitants. We therefore need to create framework conditions which ensure that young people look on the countryside as somewhere worth living in and are willing to continue the farming tradition. Setting-up aid and investment grants are essential for young farmers, but modern technology has an equally important part to play. Young farmers need to be as familiar with computers and the Internet as they are with seed and the animals in their stalls. This means that training and further training for young farmers are becoming more and more important and I, for one, support lifelong learning in farming and among farmers. Allow me to say a few brief words on the social aspects. Time and again I hear farmers using various arguments to put off leaving their farms to their children or successors. Letting go is difficult, as I know from personal experience, but it is the only way of ensuring survival. So I call on the older generations to help the young and to give them and, hence, the whole farming industry the same chance which they had. Of course, and I say this quite openly as a farmer myself, it is no help when all we hear about is the down side of the profession. Let us be quite clear about one thing: there is not a single profession which is either all good or all bad. Finally, I should like to say that it gladdens my heart when I see established and young farmers working together to develop the farm, exchanging experiences and creating and putting innovative ideas into practice. Their dedication and commitment will be needed in the future even more than ever and we must encourage successive generations to be optimistic and take their future into their own hands.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the present allocation of competences between the EU and the Member States seems almost made to measure for populists of whatever stripe. Whenever someone in the Member States wants to evade responsibility for something that is important and necessary, but unpopular, they can, with a true ring of conviction, shrug off responsibility onto the EU. ‘My dear fellow-citizens, I would far rather do it another way, but Brussels will not let me!’ You can tell the voters anything you like, as they do not understand the allocation of competences. In any case, the public are puzzled by the way powers are apportioned. Never in the last fifty years has it been easy to understand, and today it has become incomprehensible. The system of restricted prerogatives has become an unrestricted supermarket of European policies, an unworkable situation that we want to use the Lamassoure Report to fundamentally change; it is all about making things orderly, systematic and comprehensible. Much of it, indeed most of it, appears to be well done. There is one topic that I consider especially important, and I am glad that the rapporteur has taken on board one of my suggestions. This is to do with future prohibition of what is termed the misuse of legal form. In the past, when power to enact regulations or directives was lacking, the European institutions all too frequently resorted to sleight-of-hand and invented an action plan, a measure, a pilot project and more of the same thing. The missing competence thus ceased to be a problem. If we henceforth block this gate of entry into national powers, we will be closing Pandora's box, and thereby, I hope, making Europe a bit more straightforward and comprehensible, and therefore more acceptable in the eyes of its citizens. (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE
draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Fisheries. – Mr President, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries I welcome the proposal wholeheartedly. Whilst doing so I stress that it is imperative that the specific characteristics of the fisheries and the aquaculture sectors are taken into account. These sectors present quite different questions from the general food industry categories and the challenges raised by recent problems in fisheries, including infectious salmon anaemia, amnesic shellfish poisoning and dioxins, require industry-specific measures. Moreover, adequate consideration must be given to the special needs of the peripheral communities, such as those in Scotland and other fishing nations which fisheries support. That is why the Committee on Fisheries supported my amendment introducing a new recital on traceability. The very nature of fisheries has implications for traceability. There are numerous potential difficulties which the Commission must ensure are catered for, taking into account different methods of catch, where fish are caught, where they are landed and also problems associated with black fish. In addition, I felt it was essential that the composition of the management board ensures a balanced representation of expertise covering all relevant sectors involved in food production, distribution and animal feed and including, in particular, fisheries. It is regrettable that neither of these priorities were taken on board by the committee responsible. I would urge the Commissioner to take them into account. Please note that I am not suggesting increasing the size or changing the method of appointing the board, merely that the relevant expertise should be included. I welcome, however, amendments which follow the gist of my opinion, redefining the definitions of food unfit for human consumption and contaminated food in Amendments Nos 43 and 44, as they are more in line with the policy the Commission has pursued in the wake of the outbreak of infectious salmon anaemia. Finally, the Committee on Fisheries endorsed Amendments Nos 35 and 51, which take into account the distinct needs of the aquaculture sectors and, in particular, the amendments that address concerns which have been voiced about the development of genetically modified fish, to prevent them from entering the food chain through the back door via third-country imports. I would therefore urge the House to support these amendments.

Political group: Verts-ALE