GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I welcome the fact that, according to your statement, there is again movement in the peace process. Nonetheless I would like to stress that the terms of the present agreement fall considerably short of those of the Wye Agreement. I am disappointed by these repeated relapses to agreements already signed. It is so much more gratifying that the Commission is taking the political initiative in supporting the Gaza seaport, the connection between the West bank and the Gaza strip and the “People-to-People” projects. I consider the working party on regional cooperation important in taking forward the multilateral negotiations of the Madrid Process. As , we are requesting a Council and Commission Initiative on the disarmament process in particular and on environmental protection. We ask Israel to make the joint use and fair sharing of resources with Palestine possible, especially in the area of ground water and drinking water supplies. The peace process between Israel and Syria requires stronger support from the EU. The situation must not be allowed to deteriorate into a two-way blockade!

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, Mr Korakas, the rapporteur, has completed a very important piece of work over the last few months. I would like to thank him very much for being open to dialogue and to all manner of proposals, right from the start. He has been very willing to listen. Together with the work carried out by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development this has resulted in a splendid European Parliament report. If the Commission adopts the amendments put forward in Mr Korakas’ report, the result will be a much improved cotton system. The improvements will include adjustment of the guaranteed national quantities, the aid system, and the establishment of a new permanent framework recognising producers’ associations. Moreover, the amendments tabled by Parliament encourage the implementation of more environmentally-friendly measures which will save water, reduce the use of pesticides, and provide for appropriate management of plastic waste materials. However, in my opinion the Commission’s proposal is too minimalist. It is concerned solely with saving money and is incompatible with what is supposed to be the European Union’s top priority: protecting jobs. This is because insufficient account is taken of job preservation or creation when choosing between the options available. Ladies and gentlemen, I therefore urge you to vote for and support Amendment No 20, tabled by Mr Garot and myself on behalf of the Socialist Group. This amendment makes a significant proposal. We ask Member States to take employment into account when adopting measures to change the criteria for land eligible for aid. In making such decisions, account should be taken of the number of jobs dependent on these areas. We also propose that alternative crops and the existence of other options be investigated. In short, Mr President, this is all about social and economic sensitivity. I trust that our amendment will be supported, and would like to congratulate the speaker once again on his magnificent report.

Political group: PSE
Just in order to concentrate the minds of the Member States, can we ask what the Commission, and indeed the SVC, have concluded as a result of the tests which have been carried out in Switzerland with regard to the number of animals, either by number or proportion, which have entered the human food chain?

Political group: PSE
Mr President, I would ask you to turn your attention briefly to a letter which we received from Mr Balfe, on behalf of the College of Quaestors, in which, referring to the car-free day tomorrow in Brussels, he has requested the Brussels authorities make an exception for the area around the European Parliament. He would like to ensure that a limited number of cars are able to drive from here to Zaventem and to the railway stations, for example. It is extremely easy to travel by rail from here to Zaventem, which is what we did last time with the Swedish delegation, or to travel to the station. No problem at all. I would ask you to raise this matter and find out whether others are agreed on this proposal. We, for our part, certainly are not.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, I should like to support what the other speakers have said. It is ten years since the NLD won a huge majority of seats in free and fair elections, but despite that, democracy has been suppressed from every angle and at every opportunity. I believe that the recent readmittance of Burma to the Asean and EU-Asean meetings was a major mistake from the start. Burma has done nothing since being readmitted to Asean to show that it deserves it. There should be a serious rethink of this policy. Burma should be excluded. I also believe that the European Union could do a lot more. Aung San Suu Kyi has asked for sanctions but we have done absolutely nothing about this. Even the United States has at least halted new investment. Why is the European Union not ensuring that sanctions are imposed? We have to do everything we can to try and stop the forced labour and the human rights abuses. As the resolution says, we should discourage any kind of tourism to Burma. That should be supported.

Political group: Verts-ALE
I wish to congratulate Mr Herzog on the excellent report he has produced on the 2001 scoreboard for State aid (spring 2002 update), presented by the Commission, which I fully support. In the framework of competition policy, the half-yearly publication of the scoreboard for State aid since 2001 is an important tool for transparency and debate. Nevertheless, I share the opinion that the data included in this scoreboard are still not sufficient or adequate to enable a comparison to be made between the behaviour of the various Member States and the real benefits arising from State aid. We would like to see such a comparison made in the short term because this is the only way in which an informed overall study can be undertaken so that decisions can be taken on the level of aid granted and/or its possible refocusing towards horizontal objectives of common interest, such as research and development, the environment, SMEs, training and employment.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, I wish to begin by explaining to the House that the British Conservative delegation is going to abstain on Mr Lamassoure's report, which, while it contains some excellent parts, also contains some parts which we cannot accept. I must emphasise that I am saying this not to gainsay the quality of the rapporteur's work or to underestimate the effort he has put in. For the British, having no formal written constitution and having been a unitary country until quite recently, systematic analysis of the kind we are considering this evening is especially unfamiliar. Having said that, as part of the essential process of making Europe's political activities more clear, understandable, democratic and accountable and making Europe suitable for an enlarged Union, it is necessary that this work is done and done rigorously. The very fact that we find that we cannot support some of its conclusions does not seem to me to invalidate the underlying exercise. Europe's constitutional arrangements need improving, clarifying and tidying up. But that process must not be allowed to be the excuse for creeping Euro-centralisation. Rather, it must be used to develop a Europe built around its nation-states, taking decisions together, according to evolving systems of decision-making, which make them suitable and appropriate to a 21st-century world.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, I am happy to be speaking on this major document tabled by Mr Bushill-Matthews, whom I have the honour to call my friend. I am glad to see that this report, which is so important for the development of small and medium-sized businesses in Europe, has been so well written, and I hope that Mr Bushill-Matthews will continue to be a beacon of light for all those drawing up European Union legislative measures on small and medium-sized businesses. He is certainly one of the greatest authorities on the matter, which became extremely important after the fall of communism. As we are all aware, communism and the countries of the Eastern Bloc stifled free initiative. There were no small entrepreneurs in communist states. We have now proved the superiority of the economic system of free initiative. I therefore urge Mr Bushill-Matthews to remember in future – and Commissioner Schreyer to bear in mind both now and in future – that, in addition to the major initiatives proposed in this report, it would be appropriate to call strongly upon the Member States to exempt small businesses which are just starting off from taxes for at least the first five years of activity. Whoever undertakes a free initiative creates at least one job – his own – and often employs family members and other people as well. I am sure that this proposal will be music to Mr Bushill-Matthews' ears, for he is well-known for being opposed to taxation, and I therefore hope that both he and Commissioner Schreyer will accept it.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, it would of course make for enormous fun if I were now to talk about the dispute among the Conservatives, but, as Mr Bradbourn has submitted a good report, I shall refrain from doing so. I think we should start by stressing what a fascinating European transport project the trans-European networks are. Jobs are at stake, as is the transport of goods, and this is also of course about how this can be done without damaging the environment. The Commission proposal is very consistent, in that it makes clear Europe’s desire to change over to environmentally-friendly modes of transport and to water-based ones. With the motorways of the sea, we are breaking new ground, and European transport policy can hold its head up there. It has to be said, though, that railway projects and waterways have effects in terms of environmental policy, and so, as part of the trans-European networks, there is a need for strategic environmental assessment. If codecision means anything at all, it means that there have to be changes in the way specific projects are developed. If there are plans for motorways of the sea between the North Sea and the Baltic – and I think they would be a good thing – whilst the canal between the North Sea and the Baltic, which would cut the journey significantly, is forgotten, then that is not on; it would be absurd. For that reason, there is a need for improvements here. I think we need to tell the Council that we, in this Parliament, have had experience of the development of the trans-European networks; let me just mention the Christophersen Group or the Essen projects. That is why it cannot be surprising that this House should attach importance to the realisation – and hence also the funding – of the trans-European networks and the priority projects being subject to strict controls and rigorous monitoring. That I see as one of our tasks as a parliament. If the Council wants solutions – and I think it capable of getting them – then fair compromises are needed, and they have to be agreed by us together; the Council cannot simply announce a done deal. If it makes good use of the opportunity, we can achieve the right results.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, I think this is an exciting debate, and I think our rapporteurs have done a quite outstanding piece of work that has also been duly recognised. I have a couple of remarks relating to the use and re-use of public information. Some countries have made much more progress than others in this respect, and this clearly reflects a difference that also finds expression in, for example, the transparency with which countries operate. One example that might be mentioned is the significant interest shown in Denmark in a certain mayor’s restaurant and travel bills. Since everyone in Denmark has access to such documents, simply by asking to see them, there were too many people who asked to see them. The documents were therefore posted on the Internet so that any citizen could see each and every original document there. In the case of the commissioners or their colleagues, I do not believe we have access to the particulars of their work and travel or of the items they use. In Denmark, however, we do have access to this kind of information relating to such people and, in this connection, the Internet is used, and it is made available free of charge. A long list of ‘services’ use the same data again and again, and this is made available to people, who can in that way update it themselves and, for example, automatically change their tax payments and such like. Why is this kind of data made available free of charge, and why is such use of the Internet encouraged? For two reasons. Firstly, the more that people do for themselves, the faster the responses they receive and the fewer civil servants we have to employ. Secondly, society has a huge interest in this data’s being used and re-used, for we cannot count upon having a sufficient number of civil servants in the future to carry out these tasks. Data can be made available free of charge, moreover, because the public savings are as substantial as they are.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, Commissioner, the South Caucasus is a region in crisis on Europe’s doorstep, and, ever since the Soviet Union disintegrated and the Nagorno Karabakh conflict broke out, the European Union has had a strategic rather than merely humanitarian interest in keeping it economically and politically stable. One of the consequences of the enlargement of the European Union is that these hotspots are closer to us, and the prospect of a neighbourhood policy based on the present partnership and cooperation agreement should help to stabilise this region. Last year, elections were held in all three Caucasus states, and an ad hoc delegation from the European Parliament, of which the rapporteur was a member, found that these elections did not always bear any relation to our democratic conceptions of what elections and democracy are about. If you combine ethnic conflicts, mass poverty, corruption and a lack of democracy, you get an explosive mixture, to which you can add the still-unresolved conflict centred on Nagorno Karabakh, the consequence of which for Azerbaijan was the loss of 20% of its territory, along with great floods of refugees, and which from 1992 to 1999 alone, cost the European Union something like EUR 180 million. The Group of the European People’s Party sought to avoid pouring oil on the flames, to take account of the opposing parties’ sensitivities, and also to give due consideration to Russian and Turkish influence in the region. Political solutions cannot be imposed through the back door; the parties involved, along with their strategic backers, must themselves help to defuse tensions. Non-intervention is of course inadequate as a strategy. The appointment of a special representative to the region may, therefore, have been helpful, not least because it gave the EU a more visible presence in South Caucasus. What would be most helpful, though, would be a visible détente in relations between Turkey and Armenia, which would involve Turkey lifting its blockade. The Stability Pact that this House is quite right to want for the South Caucasus has no real prospect of success unless the conflicts between neighbouring states are resolved, particularly Turkey’s with the countries there. It is our humanitarian and democratic interests, and also our energy strategy considerations, that mean that there is no alternative to a more in-depth strategy for the South Caucasus. At the beginning of this year, the foreign ministers, too, took this into account when they called on the Commission and the High Representative to include Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia in the new ‘Wider Europe’ initiative. If tension is to be reduced, there must be an awareness that, although the concept of a Wider Europe is worthwhile, there is hardly any prospect of it becoming reality unless the countries between which there is conflict involve Turkey, Russia, the USA and the European Union in their efforts at resolving it.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, I too should like to protest in the strongest terms against the uproar during Commissioner Barnier's speech and to say that I share Mrs Grossetête's indignation. However, this is not the first time this has happened and I should like to propose a practical solution to the problem, because otherwise there is nothing left for us to do but apologise to the Commissioners. I think there should be quarter of an hour's break between the end of the debate and the vote.

Political group: PPE-DE
Madam President, in order to remove all doubt I would now like to make a clarification. On Sunday, 14 January Austria had its first suspected case of BSE. Allow me to inform the House that the institute in Tübingen informed us yesterday that the results were negative. I hope the same will apply to all future suspected cases in Austria. (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, this is a bad directive. I do not say that on the basis of any emotion or the fact that Doctor Rath has lobbied me. Oddly enough I have not received many e-mails, so my machine has not been stuffed full of e-mails from Doctor Rath or anybody else. I do not know why that is, but I am very quick with the delete button. I do believe this is a very bad directive, not in its intention but in its method. It is designed, as everybody has said, to bring about a common market in food supplements. It may well bring that about, but in doing so the risk is – and there is a risk – that some products currently on the market in some countries will cease to be available. I, like many British MEPs, have received many letters from people in the region that I represent. These are not circular letters that they have just signed, they are letters that they have written themselves. The people who write them fear that they will no longer be able to buy over 300 food supplements that their good health depends on. We do not need to go into why this fear has arisen and who stirred it up, if anybody has stirred it up. The fact of the matter is that the Commission has created a situation, by bringing forward the directive in this form, that has given people reason to voice and to have such fears. I have no quarrel with the German Members or with the rapporteur. She has done a valiant job. They are standing up for the system they have in place. They believe our – British, in this instance – more liberal system may allow unsafe products onto the market. We contend that consumers should be able to exercise as wide a choice as possible and that there is no evidence that products on our market are unsafe. Where is the evidence that they are unsafe? Why should we have to prove that they are safe when people buy them every day and believe that their health depends on them? I say to Commissioner Byrne: be careful. This directive tries to reconcile very different national approaches to allowing these products onto the markets and it fails in that attempt at reconciliation. Small businesses have been allowed too little time to submit the required safety dossier on their products. We may put that right tomorrow, but why, Commissioner Byrne, is it that there is no cost impact assessment on small businesses in this directive? When it came forward two years ago there was no cost impact assessment attached. Just as important, we need to have the whole process of reviewing what there is on the market much more out in the open. It should not be done by secret committees. MEPs on the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy will insist that we are much better informed on this, so that we can keep track of what is happening on behalf of our anxious constituents. We hope that we will be able to block any heavy-handed attempt to deprive people of the products they know and continue to need.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, I am optimistic and I am certain that what Commissioner Verheugen has repeated on numerous occasions will in fact happen and that, at the beginning of next year, the first accession agreements will be signed with the new Member States of the European Union in the Pnyx beneath the Acropolis, in the precincts of the church of the parish of direct democracy in which Saint Paul himself preached. I am sure that this new historic reconciliation, which is good news for all of us, will look to the future and that we shall all dismiss the atavism which has been flying around recently as a mere distraction of no importance whatsoever. We have seen a great number of protagonists along the way. The twelve candidate countries, ten of which will join us next year, at least on paper, with the other two, I hope, following on a little later. Along the way, nations have woken up and governments have woken up. However, I should like to highlight the real efforts made by a number of countries. Cyprus tops the league of candidate countries. It has an exemplary economy, an exemplary democracy and its institutions operate in an exemplary fashion. And hopefully, all these developments will help forces which do not operate as positively as they might to resolve regional problems. Malta, that unique Mediterranean island, the only one left which will not be a member of the European Union for some time yet and which we need to treat with understanding and on its own merits. Lithuania, for which I have acted as rapporteur. This country has forged ahead in leaps and bounds in resolving the problem of moving from a planned economy to a free market economy. It has made excellent progress on a great many issues. Taking a decision such as the one about the Ignalina nuclear power station which Commissioner Verheugen mentioned earlier takes a great deal of political courage, especially when you know the regional structure of energy networks in the area and how the economy depends on them. There are two problems: first the usual problem in these countries, that is, agriculture. I trust we shall demonstrate the courage needed and the will needed to ensure these issues do not delay the enlargement process. Secondly, the major political issue of Kaliningrad. Clearly, these political issues and other issues in Europe must not listen to the urgings of the past. They must listen to the needs of the future. In this sense, the political wisdom of the European Union will be judged in Kaliningrad; it must be true to itself but must understand that the historic reconciliation reached between the 15, between the 25, the 27 and the 28 countries has to be a factor in continuing historic reconciliation, a Europe of peace, cooperation and development for everyone. A Europe in which we feel at home.

Political group: PSE