GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen. Parliament has worked on this Commission proposal in a very focused manner, in a very focused and very concerted manner. We were quick and we agreed across the committee and party political divide, under Mr Karas's guidance, on what I think is a good position. And because we have worked in such a quick and concerted manner, we can formulate clear demands on exactly what sort of coordination is required. First, at no time, not for a minute, not for a second, does anyone have any authority whatsoever to subordinate the social goals of Lisbon, the employment policy ambitions of the Lisbon agenda, to a one-dimensional interpretation of the internal market. This must be crystal clear and must be expressed in the procedures we choose. On the contrary, only if you take specific measures to promote social integration, only if you develop the full potential of people in Europe and get them into work, will you have any chance of putting Lisbon's demanding agenda into practice. I say that quite advisedly in the present debate on job market reforms and the reform of social security systems. Of course we need systems to be flexible and adaptable, but we also need them to be modern. And a modern system is a system that offers security, security for job seekers, job security, security in the event of illness, old age or disability. That is why economic reform is a means to an end when it comes to maintaining and renewing the European social model, not the other way round. If this is what we want, we have to put the objectives of competitiveness, social security and full employment on a par with each other. We have to find ways of linking these goals and making them mutually supportive. And if that is what we want, we must also make sure that the relevant Councils and Commission departments are involved on an equal footing and that no new hierarchies are created or old hierarchies reaffirmed. We shall be measuring you in your spring report, in your guideline package, on the basis of whether you meet these targets and do justice to what the streamlining concept promises. Secondly, if we want to do justice to Lisbon and Gothenburg, we must stop beating about the environmental bush. We must use the full potential of environmental policy in order to make it work for qualifications and employment. Thirdly, as Mr Karas quite rightly points out in his report, economic policy is a matter of common interest which deserves to be coordinated. If we want to coordinate it, then we also need to pluck up the courage to talk about investments and about an offensive in this area in the face of around 8% unemployment and a growth rate of under 1%. Parliament will be involved in this discussion and we must secure our rightful place in it.

Political group: PSE
I voted in favour of this agreement, as I did in favour of the previous one. I voted in favour of it, not because I support the policy of Mr Sharon’s government but because, for me, such an agreement would promote peace by helping the forces for peace that are present very widely within the scientific world. I am sure, moreover, that everything that promotes intelligence combats fundamentalism and, therefore, violence. I would add, on this Thursday 11 March 2004, that the appalling attack on Madrid, which is traumatising Europe, should enable us better to ‘understand’ public opinion among Israel’s civil population, which is under permanent threat and the victim of bloody terrorist attacks.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as I highlighted in my report on European citizenship, which we adopted in plenary last September, recognising European citizenship has been a slow process that even today faces too many obstacles, with initiatives having to be carried out to ensure that the concept of European citizenship is fully implemented in its political, administrative, judicial, social and economic aspects. I also recommended at that time that, in order to deal with the obstacles still hampering EU citizens’ exercise of freedom of movement and residence, the proposal for a directive that we are discussing today should be adopted as rapidly as possible. By reworking existing texts, this proposal attempted to introduce the much -needed streamlining by combining in a single legal instrument the right to free movement and residence in the European area, and enshrine, specifically, the right of permanent residence at the end of four years of continuous residence. This is a welcome proposal. The work of our rapporteur, Mr Santini – and very good work it is – has helped to introduce into this proposal a set of contributions that I believe are extremely positive. There are, nevertheless, two areas that have already been mentioned in this debate, which still pose problems. They concern the definition of the family, an excessively broad definition, which appears to seek to force national legislation to recognise the definition of an unmarried partner as a family member. I believe that common sense would here dictate respect for national law and for the provisions laid down in each Member State. This also applies to the excessively broad concept of family member, on which I think it would be more reasonable to uphold the current acquis for direct descendants and direct relatives in the ascending line, contrary, therefore, to the widening put forward in the proposal. This could lead to an enormous increase in the number of people requesting family reunification. The widening of the definition proposed by Mr Santini is therefore acceptable on humanitarian grounds or on serious health grounds.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, I too would like to thank the rapporteur for this excellent report. I also fully endorse his findings, in which, in particular, he suggests increasing the number of consultants for judges at the Court of First Instance and providing the latter with its own translation service. In point of fact, I consider this to be necessary because we heard, following the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market’s visit to Luxembourg, that it is of course inevitable, a God-given fact as it were, that the Court of Justice should take precedence over the Court of First Instance when it comes to using the joint translation service, and so more often than not, important cases handled by the Court of First Instance cannot be given the attention they deserve. However I also believe that the reforms must go further than those we are to adopt here. For example, I believe it is worth considering making the Court of First Instance that of Last Instance, if applicable, and making this a final competence, in those spheres where benches of the Court, which resemble courts, pass judgement at a preliminary stage – I need only mention the keyword Alicante or whatever the plans are for European civil service law. I am also aware that we are probably also going to have to do something about the European Commission’s inclination to renationalise competition decisions and transfer them back to national level. It seems to me that we need to give this some thought, as these cases will no longer fall to the Court of First Instance of course but to the Court of Justice as draft decisions. We need to consider how we will deal with situations of this kind. Where possible, one should also have the opportunity to present draft decisions in competition cases to the specialist chamber within the Court of First Instance. In addition, we must consider whether it is right and proper – and we have already had cases in which MEPs, not to mention groups, lodged a complaint against the European Parliament – for the Court of First Instance to be responsible for such cases, when in fact matters of a constitutional nature are affected and it makes more sense for such matters to be brought before the Court of Justice than before the Court of First Instance. On a final note, I too believe that OLAF requires monitoring under rule of law. As things stand, OLAF is in a vacuum and can do as it pleases. It is essential for OLAF to be monitored by a court. The only court that could reasonably do so would be the Court of First Instance. That would be another way of spurring the reform process on.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, I am taking the floor simply in order to support this request, and to say quite simply that it is very dangerous to include, in legislation of the first pillar, items which are not very well-structured and which come under the third pillar.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Everyone knows we are facing an enormous growth in traffic and Mr Piecyk has today set out all the awful effects this will have. To summarise briefly they are the social effects, environmental and health effects and safety effects and globalisation has a part to play in this. In short, I think that the problem is accurately described in the White Paper. What we are in principle seeking of course, for environmental reasons, for example, but also for a number of other reasons, is the separation of economic growth and transport and related problems. What is missing for me, and here I concur with Mr Piecyk, who was talking about avoiding traffic, is what we in the Netherlands call transport prevention or transport limitation. In the Netherlands this is absolutely an existing line of policy and I should like it to be taken seriously at European level. It is a sectoral approach. Everyone can imagine what happens if you decide to produce more regionally, for example in the agriculture sector. Then you have no need to transport any meat or transport any animals. A second option of course is to tackle it with new technology. All kinds of things are possible in this regard: low emission and low energy cars, etc. Where the modal shift is concerned, I heard Mrs Peijs arguing just now that rail must not receive this stimulus from the European Union. I cannot agree with that at all. I think that it is indeed necessary, but I also think that there is an absolute need for the emission problems of rail compared with the other modes to be tackled seriously. Final point: pricing. If we look at the pricing discussions to date, then I find it disappointing that, after the four years that I have been in this Parliament, after a group has worked on this subject at high level, after we have drafted the Costa report, we have still not made any advances at that level. I must say that I see more in the practical approaches, in Switzerland for example, than in the theoretical considerations. Finally, moreover, I support the standpoint concerning the expansion issues and the exhortation not to slip back into the same mistakes, as previously indicated.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Madam President, in Item 5 of the Minutes, on the “Readmission of third-country nationals”, after Mr Duff’s intervention on the verification of the quorum, it says: “The following spoke on this request: Mr Ribeiro Castro, Mr Knörr Borr s,... etc.”. However, if we read the verbatim report, we can see that Mr Knörr Borr s’ intervention said: “Madam President, I should like to convey our support and sympathy for the people of Paraguay in the light of another attempted military coup. That is all I wished to say. I should like the position of this House to be made very clear”. I must point out that what Mr Knörr Borr s said has nothing to do with the quorum, but with an important issue of international policy, i.e. an attempted coup in Paraguay. There has been a declaration on this issue by the President of a political group – the Socialist Group – and we are also going to present a motion for a resolution on it, but I would like to ask the President, firstly, whether the Minutes should be corrected and, secondly, whether the Presidency has made any declaration, because I believe that it is important for us to show our solidarity with Paraguayan democracy.

Political group: PSE
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to begin by thanking the Council and the Commissioner for their words and, of course, congratulating the rapporteurs, Mr Bushill-Matthews and Mrs Bastos. Chapter II of the European Union’s Charter of Fundamental Rights, entitled ‘Freedoms’, in Article 15, tells us that 'Every citizen of the Union has the freedom to seek employment, to work, to exercise the right of establishment and to provide services in any Member State'. I believe that this article should be promoted to the category of a fundamental right in terms of the free movement of services and persons. However, there are still many obstacles to the mobility of the workforce, qualified or non-qualified, between the Member States, which prevents us from having European labour markets open to all and, probably, as a logical consequence of this, causes territorial imbalances and situations of injustice, social exclusion or poverty. These are all obstacles to the achievement of the objective set at the Lisbon European Council and ratified at the Barcelona European Council. The European Union must become the most dynamic and competitive knowledge-based economy in the world, capable of sustainable economic growth, accompanied by more and better jobs and greater social cohesion. Hence the need to modify and simplify social security systems and enshrine the principle of the transferability of supplementary pension rights. It would be appropriate, and perhaps necessary, to create a mobility plan which has a real effective impact on the lives of the citizens, and mainly in specific regions such as cross-border areas, with the involvement of the local authorities, reinforcing the local dimension of employment. This impact must also be felt in specific material areas and areas of competence, such as the service economy and the environment and of course, with the participation of social agents, in a fluid and easy communication between the professional and educational sectors, taking particular account of the importance of training and education systems in relation to the development of a culture of mobility, creating horizontal policies, such as policies on equality and others, because the different options are not exclusive and self-contained compartments, but part of a whole, a series of actions intended to develop the European social model and realise the principles that certain visionaries – I say this with respect – perceived more than 50 years ago. At the end of the day, as the Commissioner has said, it is a question of those who want to move around throughout the European Union being able to do so.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we must not forget that, although we are talking about the specific case of Austria, our perspective must be much wider, covering the entire network of Alpine passes, if we want to be objective and make decisions which suit everybody to some degree. Indeed, what happens to one pass immediately affects all the others. As far as the Brenner tunnel is concerned, recent progress has been spasmodic, to say the least. I would point out that, apart from its natural appeal as a direct vertical line connecting Northern Europe to the Mediterranean, just recently, traffic going to the Brenner tunnel – in Austria, therefore, but in Italy too – has increased immeasurably for very long periods because of the closure of first the Mont Blanc tunnel and then the St Gotthard tunnel and because of the acute crises at the Fréjus pass and the Swiss passes. All this has helped to make the question of the environmental protection of Austria desperate, but we must not forget – and this has never been given any consideration – that there is another side of the Alps, the Italian side, and it will not surprise you to learn that that is where I live. We have never received any recognition of what is exactly the same problem as that of Austria, whereas Austria has been allowed to use the ecopoints system and other systems mentioned by a number of speakers. We have never been allowed to use an ecopoints system or tolls like those for the ‘Ponte Europa’ or the Austrian stretch of motorway, which are among the highest in Europe. I have therefore reached the conclusion that the solution proposed by the Caveri report is fair. It is right to apply the ecopoints system to EURO 1 and EURO 2 lorries and it is right to exempt EURO 3 lorries and all subsequent generations of vehicles, but it is also right to abandon ecopoints after 2006 and find alternative ways of offsetting external costs, and not just where Austria is concerned but with regard to all the critical and sensitive areas of Europe. Lastly, it is right to focus on implementing major rail and intermodal transport projects, starting with the Brenner Base Tunnel, for now it really is time to get to work not just on projects but on implementing them too.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, the proposal for a directive we are debating today on equal treatment in employment and occupation clearly expresses the will and the endeavour of the European Union to adapt its social model to new economic, social and cultural realities, and that is why we welcome it with particular satisfaction. Implementing the directive is certain to improve the quality of life in European society. It will also contribute to enhancing the image of Europe in the eyes of the rest of the world, which is watching us especially closely, by actively demonstrating that Europe is continuing to work hard to protect human rights and to promote solidarity and democracy. But whether these aims will succeed or not depends on the contents of the directive being understood, on Member States acknowledging its importance and value, and on its correct and unequivocal implementation. That is why I believe that support will be given to the amendments that are concerned with monitoring its implementation. The amendments relating to informing citizens inside and outside the workplace, informing and educating social partners and economic and social operators, and training those who work in the public sector and the legal and legislative bodies of the Member States will also be supported.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Socialist Group, I would like to express our full support for the report by Mrs Jackson. I believe that this is an important question. We have seen it happen, even if it is not the direct subject of this report, with the dioxin case. We can set up all the European directives, all the recommendations, all the laws that we want. If their application is not guaranteed by inspection, I believe that the grave doubts of our fellow citizens regarding European effectiveness and the value of these standards may well increase. We therefore need to establish control and inspection on a Community basis. Obviously, a fair balance between the responsibility of Member States and European intervention must be found. In this area, we support the request from Mrs Jackson not to limit ourselves to adopting recommendations, but to go on to the phase of an actual directive, which establishes precise criteria, which each of the Member States shall have to respect in its performance of inspections. We therefore support all the amendments, requesting the Commission to take note of the need to set strict frameworks. We have heard the new Commissioner, Mrs Wallström, whom we questioned on the matter of the effectiveness of laws. She stated the intention of the Commission to be stricter to ensure that, in the end, inspection is effective and its application strict. We therefore support adoption of the amendments by Parliament. After all, after the cases we have experienced with dioxin, we can clearly see the risk we face. We can progress in a reasonable and strict manner towards effective European inspection of Member States, within the framework of a European vision. But the second phase is the creation of European inspectors – I might call them super-inspectors – who will be able to check the proper performance of Member State inspections. If we do not do this, when the first crisis comes along, given the lack of inspection in a Member State and the lack of a European principle on inspection, we shall resort to an independent agency which must be created in order to manage the question of food, for example, as we have seen when debating this matter. I think that this is not the correct response. The proper response is inspection, control, regulations, managed politically by the representative authorities of the Union, and in which the European Parliament must have entire responsibility. We therefore would request the Commission to heed the proposals of the Jackson report both to go on to issue a directive but, at the same time, to finally initiate a new phase as regards Community inspection.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, I would like to congratulate the rapporteurs and indeed all those concerned with the budgetary process. I am rather an absentee member of the Committee on Budgets myself. I wanted to talk this afternoon about a small but highly sensitive programme the European Initiative on Democracy and Human Rights, which is Line 1904 in the budget and to which amendments have been tabled on which we will vote tomorrow. I was the rapporteur who set up this fund in 1992, which now has EUR 100 million in it. I am currently rapporteur for the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy on the two financial regulations which will cover the financing of this programme in 2005 and 2006, as well as the communication from the Commission called 'Reintegrating human rights and democracy in the Mediterranean'. It is on this particular point that I want to focus. It seems to me that we need to be very conscious of the arc of instability running up from Morocco through the near-neighbour countries to the European Union as we enlarge next year. Indeed this whole region was called an 'arc of reform' by President Bush, but it is not so. There are many problems, some of which were referred to by Mr McCartin just now, and by other speakers too. The European Parliament, which set up this Initiative for Democracy and Human Rights, should now encourage the Commission immediately to refocus its 2004 priorities on this wider Europe programme, and in particular on the Arab countries. Some will know that the UNDP 2002 report focused on the lack of democracy in the Arab countries. The 2003 report contains surveys of public opinion in those countries which show that the Arabs actually have the highest demand and appetite for democracy of any region in the world. We in the European Parliament therefore have a special duty to sustain, encourage and develop those programmes, particularly in 2004. I intend to make use of the codecision on these two financial regulations to encourage the Commission and the Council to allow the European Parliament once more to have the oversight that it used to have on these programmes and to provide the political cover which the Council of Ministers cannot provide.

Political group: PPE-DE