GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Madam President, Commissioners, I welcomed the conclusion of the agreement on the transfer of footballers with great satisfaction. The terms of the agreement appear to be positive. It was certainly a matter that needed regulating. In particular, I welcome the fact that the Commission has succeeded in emphasising the aspects related to solidarity towards small sports clubs as well in an agreement which is economic and legislative in nature, valuing their enormous dedication to training young people. I would also like to thank Commissioner Reding and Commissioner Monti, who, this very morning, together with the Italian sports writers' association and the supporters' association, allowed me to put forward the idea of establishing a European sports committee and maybe subsequently a European sports agency, which would have the task of promoting healthy sporting activity and dealing at European level with different issues related to culture, education, the free movement of persons, non-discrimination and the fight against violence, racism and doping. To sum up, we have set off along the right road but we must tread the path resolutely, as, I am sure, Commissioner Reding will do. So what will the next the stage be?

Political group: PPE-DE
I should like to use the vote on Mr Lannoye’s report as an opportunity to remind the House of the catastrophic situation currently facing European beekeepers. On 13 December 2001 the European Parliament voted in favour of its resolution on the Commission report on improving the production and marketing of honey. That resolution contains a real cry for help regarding the deplorable situation of beekeepers and their hives. This appeal by the European Parliament was heard by the Council, in particular at the Agriculture Council on 18 February 2002. Unfortunately, our resolution did not receive a similar welcome from the Commission, which has still not reacted. Yet the situation continues to worsen. Last week, therefore, I decided to send a written question to the Commission, condemning this lack of action. In Western France, because of fungicides sprayed on fields of wheat, more than four thousand hives have been affected and 70% of honey production has already been lost. The end result will be that if the Commission continues to fail to act, bees will be extinct in a few years’ time. Mr Lannoye’s report on plant protection products also touches on this problem. In its opinion to the Committee on the Environment, the Committee on Agriculture has submitted two amendments. (Explanation of vote cut short pursuant to Rule 137(1) of the Rules of Procedure)

Political group: PPE-DE
Madam President, I welcome Mr Imbeni’s entry into the ranks of expounders of explanations of vote. I have to say that this is not my first! Madam President, I was very uncertain as to which way to vote – for or against the motion – not least because this is a financial, economic issue of which I do not have much experience. Therefore, I was happy to follow the recommendations made by Mrs Kauppi – in her speech, not in my dreams, I am afraid, Madam President. Mrs Kauppi is sitting here behind me. It is true that she is young, but she cares about the interests of all pensioners, including Italian pensioners, to whom she has spoken on a number of occasions. She said that if this directive had been adopted in conciliation it would have benefited pensioners. I believe her and so I voted for the motion.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, we all know how easy it is to unleash racist and xenophobic behaviour by using the migratory phenomena that Europe is currently experiencing. This easy approach, which subliminally identifies immigration with violence in the citizens’ minds, opens the door to appalling racist and xenophobic behaviour and undermines the bases of civic coexistence in Europe today, catapulting the populists into the seats of power. Whereas this represents added value for Europe by helping to resolve a common problem, it loses effect as a result of coming up against the nationalist and police barriers that every Member State is now building for itself – simply sand castles that fall apart when the wind blows a little harder. Despite all of this we must emphasise the genuinely European aim of this framework decision, which is intended to establish a European system of sanctions for crimes of racism and xenophobia, which have to date fallen under international law or under the national law of each Member State, a net with a very wide mesh through which the perpetrators of these crimes can slip. Europe, Mr President, cannot protect itself by political inertia or by spouting fine words or by irresponsibly telling voters the easiest thing to say, which is that the fault is someone else’s. Europe can only protect itself through the law, using sanctions and prosecutions. This is why, Commissioner, we support this initiative and hope that the Council will not shirk from approving it quickly.

Political group: PSE
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, as rapporteur for the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, I would like to inform you of the Committee’s key demand. It is about extending codecision to all aspects of agricultural policy, which is something that still remains to be done. The Treaty of Amsterdam led to a strengthening of the European Parliament’s powers, inter alia by extending codecision to various policy areas. However when it comes to agriculture, it is only when health policy and public health are under discussion that Parliament has codecision rights, as per Article 152, for the core area remains outside the codecision procedure. There is no justification for this in our eyes. The common agricultural policy is the most long-established and evolved Community policy. It is absolutely vital, particularly as we are talking about a huge budget (which actually accounts for half of the European Parliament’s total budget) for the European Parliament to make full use of its supervisory powers and its powers in the legislative sphere. It should also be pointed out in this context that we are not in competition with the national parliaments. They no longer have any decision-making powers where agricultural policy is concerned either, for this is a policy that is decided on purely by the executive – the Council that is – in the form of legislative acts. Hence this is not about a clash between the European Parliament and the national parliaments, it is about making this policy subject to parliamentary control in the first place. I call upon all my fellow delegates to do everything they can to persuade their respective governments to have codecision extended to agricultural policy at this Intergovernmental Conference. I would like to thank those who will be representing the European Parliament at the Intergovernmental Conference, as I know they will pursue our concerns with great vigour. (Applause)

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the failure to renew the fisheries agreement with Morocco dealt a harsh blow to the external strategy for fisheries policy and has had tragic consequences for certain fishing areas, especially in Andalusia and, on a smaller scale, in Portugal’s Algarve region. The Commission and Parliament have, it must be said, managed to adopt a plan to support the activities affected, albeit with a few weaknesses and shortcomings, which are now being corrected. We therefore welcome this Commission proposal, which has come about as the result of Parliamentary pressure as well as requests from the two countries directly affected, Portugal and Spain. It must be said that this proposal would perhaps not have been needed if the Commission had listened to Parliament when Regulation 2561/2001 was discussed. Even then, the potential problems of implementing this regulation had already been clearly identified. We support the Miguélez Ramos report, and have nothing but praise for the rapporteur’s work and for the initiatives she has produced, which are doubtless behind the corrections that are being made to the proposal. We must ensure equal treatment for all fishermen and we must ensure that the regulation covers the greatest number possible of people working in this sector. The provisions preventing already scheduled aid being granted within more reasonable deadlines must, therefore, be removed. We support the rapporteur’s amendments, which are so clearly justified that they need no further comment. It is right that financial compensation should also be given to fishermen who are unemployed as a result of other decisions and not just because their vessels have been scrapped, including fishermen who have decided to devote themselves to other types of fishing, for example, or those who have already switched to other types of fishing. I wish to make one last comment, Mr President, which concerns the need, in future, to provide emergency measures for situations of vulnerability when agreements with third countries might lead to situations of collapse and harm fishing activities. I genuinely believe that we need a global strategy so that we do not only respond to these situations as and when they arise.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, in 1997, the Commission approved an interpretative communication – and I stress interpretative – on intra-Community investments, which was not submitted to the European Parliament or to the Council. And under the auspices of this Communication, the Commission has to date begun legal actions, if our calculations are correct, against nine of the fifteen Member States. Nobody questions the Commission’s duty to pursue alleged infringements of Community Law. The Group of the European Peoples’ Party ’ criticism is that, by means of an interpretative communication, the Commission has unilaterally set the rules of the game in such an important area, and this is proved by the fact that the Stockholm European Council has dealt with it, thereby side-stepping, in our view, the legislative competences of this Parliament and of the Council. I assume that Commissioner Bolkestein will be aware that the Court of Justice has already set the precedent of annulling an interpretative communication similar to this one, on pension funds, precisely because the Commission exceeded its authority. But it is also the case, Commissioner, that this Communication of 1997 has become obsolete because of recent economic developments. For all these reasons, it is very important to this House that the Commissioner replies clearly whether he intends, in accordance with his competences, to present a legislative proposal on intra-Community investments to Parliament and the Council. My Group, of course, believes this to be essential, given the current circumstances, and I am certain that, at the end of this debate, the Commissioner will be convinced that this presumption is agreed on by the enormous majority of this House. Of these new circumstances which I have just referred to, I am going to expand on the opening up of national markets in key economic sectors, in which there still exist within the European Union monopoly systems which create asymmetry. In fact, in accordance with Community guidelines, certain Member States have made great efforts to open up their telecommunications and other sectors to competition. However, other States have not taken equivalent measures and their markets therefore remain closed to external competition. This is why the Group believes that we should permit prevention mechanisms such as the 'golden share', because otherwise objective discrimination may arise. I would therefore ask the Commissioner what measures the Commission intends to present in order to allow the Member States which are working to open up and privatise their economies to free competition to preserve the objective of that privatisation? Commissioner, on Thursday, this Parliament will vote on a resolution which will establish its position at the end of the debate. I am convinced that the Commission will at all times apply the interinstitutional agreement which binds us and that you, Commissioner, will therefore act in accordance with your powers of legislative initiative and consequently present this House with a specific proposal immediately.

Political group: PPE-DE
Madam President, this is a serious problem, yet limited in terms of scope. At the end of the day, this is about a few priests who spent some time in Africa and who displayed behaviour which was naturally wholly inappropriate and which we do not endorse at all. However, we should not generalise. This was not the Holy See’s policy. Neither is this an urgent matter, because the incidents date back to 1994-1995. Now the Vatican too has taken measures and launched its own inquiry. Steps have since been taken against the priests in question and the relevant details have been disclosed. Accordingly, my group proposes not to include this topic in the urgent and topical debate. Needless to say, it is entirely logical in our view, and we would also appreciate it if we were to discuss this topic within the parliamentary committees, for that – and not the urgent and topical debate – is the appropriate forum.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, as the UK Labour delegation spokesperson on health, I would like to give an explanation of vote on the Trakatellis report. Although there are many good features in this report which deserve support – and we support them – given the voting list method of voting en bloc we have followed the position throughout. However, I would like to make it clear that the proposal for the centre mentioned in the Trakatellis report gives us great concern. We feel that this proposal is ill-thought through, the cost implications ill-considered and the legal implications could possibly delay all that is good in this report. As I said last night, and I will say again, health is an issue which connects with the citizen. Therefore, it is important that we get this proposal through as quickly as possible. I look forward to the second reading.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, I would like to offer warm thanks to Mr Rocard, and also to Mr Marinos, for their trail-blazing report, which is on the table today. The issue of health insurance has occupied European minds for quite some time now, but the Kohll and Decker decrees, in which the European Court of Justice determined that healthcare received overseas must be remunerated by insurers, has in fact added an extra dimension to this discussion. Mr Rocard’s report, which we have here before us, will help to stimulate debate about the further development of social security in Europe, within the context of growing competition and the rise of the single market in healthcare. One of the main objectives of the current modernisation of social protection is guaranteed access to affordable health protection. It is particularly important for the affordability of health care to be taken into consideration, because the discussion about social security is determined not so much by the quality as by the cost of health care. With its Kohll and Decker decrees, the Court of Justice has sent a clear message to the EU Member States. We are really coming round to the idea of cross-border care and so market forces are becoming increasingly applicable to health care. Whether this will happen, to what extent and when, is still unclear. Research and experiments have shown that it will not open the floodgates to medical tourism. However, there can be no two ways about it; more and more people are going to seek health care overseas. It is therefore imperative that the citizens are our main concern in this process. This issue has one or two implications for us, but it will also have an impact on the national systems. We are talking subsidiarity. National systems of health care, and even the supervision of health insurance, are regulated at national level, but that does not mean that we are not all dealing with the same problems. That is precisely why it is so important – and in fact this is far and away the most significant achievement of this report – for the Commission to produce a Green Paper on supplementary health insurance in the short term. In point of fact, we must ask the Commission whether it is in a position to do this, and if so, how long will it take? Because it is very important. The statistics available to us in this sphere are not comparable, despite our best efforts to this end, and so it is crucial that we have this Green Paper. Apart from that, there is a great deal people want done in the health care sector. A significant number of these aspirations are at national level, but that does not mean that we should not compare notes. Hitherto, this has been somewhat taboo up to a certain point. The Kohll and Decker decree has made a breakthrough. I also think the Rocard report has made a breakthrough on that score, but it is very important for the Commission to take up the initiative now, and come to the table with an actual Green Paper. Once that is in place we will look at how we should take it forward.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, in actual fact, suffice it to say that I concur with Mr van den Bos, and I would like to take the opportunity to emphasise how fitting Parliament’s recommendations are here. Bangladesh has always been one of those poor countries which are regularly in the news, and the disasters which hit that country are always heart-rending. When we now study the statistics, we notice that, all of a sudden, the country could be considered a success story, with economic growth of 5% of the GNP per capita, with growth in export of no less than 12.8% in the five years between 1993 and 1998, and even boasting a decrease in the population growth. Mothers now have three children instead of seven. In short, you could be forgiven for thinking that everything is moving in the right direction, but, of course, this is the difference between a country which is very, very, very poor and a country which is only very, very poor. It remains a problem if you realise that 60 million people live under the poverty line, and you have economic growth which cannot keep up with the population growth. Out of the 162 countries on the Human Development Index, Bangladesh does not come last, but 145th, which is very sad indeed. So we welcome this toll-free access of the country’s goods into the European market. We think that this will have a favourable impact, but we believe that we, ourselves, should make a greater effort to, for example, breathe new life into the jute organisation which died a death. Finally, I, too, would appeal for more use to be made of the human rights clause which is encapsulated in the first article of the agreement, so as to realise those aspects which Mr van den Bos expressed so eloquently.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, I would also like to pass on my best regards to Mr Karlsson, thank him for his presentation and all the work he has done over the past few years. I hope he will pass on our thanks to his other colleagues who are also leaving. We must remember that this report is the first report which assesses the first full year of the Prodi Commission – a Commission which, let us remind ourselves, was appointed with the specific remit of radical overhaul and reform of the European Union. The question we will be asking in our discharge procedure this year is: 'Is the Commission delivering on that promise?'. Let us be clear. If it is not, then the credibility of both the Prodi Commission and of this Parliament is on the line. It is much too early to assess the success or failure of the Prodi Commission and of Commission reform. The only question we can ask at this point is whether we are headed in the right direction. Mr Karlsson, I noted your words last night. There are a number of hopeful signs in this report. So, where the Commission has specific responsibility, we do seem to be seeing some positive developments. As you say, the strategy on BSE is basically sound. The work of the Agency charged with the reconstruction of Kosovo was efficient and economical. The reform programme is heading in the right direction. You have approved the recasting of the financial regulation and the Commission's proposals on financial incentives for top grade officials, although I note that you have some concerns about the Commission's accounting mechanisms. Perhaps Mrs Schreyer could comment on that. We are not going to let the Commission off the hook. There is a large area where the Commission has joint responsibility with the Member States, particularly in the agricultural sector and the structural funds. The primary responsibility must lie with the Member States. They are responsible for 85% of the budget. Here we see some serious structural weaknesses. In the structural funds, we see problems in the application of regulations at every level. The CAP accounts for over 40% of the budget and where Member States are responsible there is no improvement. Heads of stock continue be overstated. We know that Belgium, Denmark, Ireland and the Netherlands have not signed the Convention on the Protection of Financial Interests. We are disappointed, Mr Karlsson, that you did not mention them by name in the report. Again the Court has failed to give a statement of assurance to the Commission. As I said last night, this is a complicated and ever-changing procedure and I do not believe the Commission will ever get a statement of assurance. So the main message, as far as I can see, is that the Commission should keep going. It is on the right track. Member States must stop hiding behind the Commission and assume their proper responsibility of protecting EU taxpayers' money.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, the EU and US should be the two principal forces leading the fight for human rights internationally. We can only do that if we are united in our assessment of what constitutes full respect for human rights and if we are credible through consistency between what we do at home and say abroad. There is a gulf of mutual incomprehension between the EU and the US. We think 'how can Americans insist on executing people, insist on boycotting the International Criminal Court and insist on denying Guantanamo bay detainees a fair trial?' There are about 18 EU citizens and residents incarcerated at Camp Delta. One of my London constituents, Feroz Abbasi, is among them. There must be joint EU pressure on the US to secure civilian trials with normal safeguards. The war on terror must not become an onslaught on civil liberties. If we permit unjustified surveillance, detention and discrimination against minorities, especially Muslims, we will weaken our moral credibility as well as foster more terrorism. The best maxim is 'practice what you preach'. Together, the EU and US are a formidable team. Divided, we weaken our power for human rights.

Political group: ELDR
he motion on fundamental rights in the European Union is, generally speaking, a good motion. However, there are several problem paragraphs, such as paragraph 78 on the ban on women entering Mount Athos. I do not think it is against this criterion that women’s rights will be measured; they will be measured in terms of employment, equal pay, domestic violence and the fight against trafficking in human beings. We can hardly talk about freedom of movement on this tiny strip of land which has its own sense of time and observes customs and traditions which date back thousands of years. Soon we will be calling for freedom of establishment and freedom of business activity and the monasteries will be overrun with Coca-Cola stands. In an increasingly plastic and homogenised world, we should respect the cultural wealth which comes down from the past, without affecting modern society, and leave Mount Athos to travel through time at its own pace. It is because of paragraph 78 that I am forced to vote against the report as a whole.

Political group: GUE-NGL