GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Posselt's last statement, his threat to talk for 20 minutes non-stop about the Deprez report, really is an argument for deferring the report at this stage. However, the basic problem here is something quite different. Mr Posselt has in fact said everything that needs to be said. What we are witnessing here – and we have already debated this once this afternoon, as we also did on Monday and Tuesday – is, and I shall make no bones about it, an attempt to systematically undermine Strasbourg as the seat of Parliament. Tactics like this are capable of achieving just that. Mr Posselt, even if it would make a valuable contribution if you were to speak for 20 minutes – and I too could also speak for 20 minutes, as no one else is left from my group either – in reality it would mean that the work Mr Deprez has so carefully done would not be debated in the way it deserves here. To that extent I can understand Mr Deprez's desire that his report, which is based on the approach developed in the committee and which should be reflected here in this Chamber, should be given a reasonable hearing in the plenary. So I really am in favour of deferring a report as important as this one, and for my part I would recommend acceding to Mr Deprez's request.

Political group: PSE
The European Parliament must oppose any amendment of the common agricultural policy that would break the terms of the contract which, until 2006, links European power and the agriculture sector, particularly as all the signs indicate that European agricultural spending is still substantially lower than the amounts laid down in Berlin in 1999. The common agricultural policy must, as a matter of priority, ensure both food safety and food security, and the European Union must therefore impose the same quality and health requirements on agricultural products imported from third countries as on European products. Furthermore, given that agriculture is extremely important in maintaining economic activity in rural areas and in achieving balanced land use, we need to establish and maintain specific measures. In fact, regulatory stability and the maintenance of income policy guarantee investment choices and the continued operation of farms and agricultural businesses. We must prevent restrictions on aid to farmers from encouraging large undertakings to expand further, to the detriment of the family farm model, which is environmentally friendly and which has a human aspect.

Political group: ELDR
In the past, companies were meant to last. Despite conflicts of interest, entrepreneurs and workers agreed that their companies would provide jobs for future generations. The entrepreneur who had founded the companies saw this as his life’s work. He believed in his product and in his contribution to progress for his town or region. For the workers, it was the place that provided them with a source of income and brought them and their colleagues together. More say in the business and a better income were the future. These days, companies are commodities. They are bought, closed down or plundered to release the capital for activities that yield more profits for the owners. Anonymous international forces are quick to call an end to all the old certainties. Legislation about takeovers can serve very different goals, one of which is to protect the employees and their permanent living environments, while another is to facilitate the trade in companies in order to yield maximum benefit for their shareholders. These two goals are not very compatible. This is why those who claim that the fact that a directive on takeover bids is being introduced is more important than its content are wrong. As in 2001, I am once again voting for everything that contributes to a directive of the former kind and against everything that leads to one of the latter.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, I too would like to welcome the Speaker of the Knesset, Mr Burg, and the Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, Mr Abu Ala. I feel that this debate, from the Council statement to the speeches made by Mr Moscovici and Commissioner Patten and the majority of the other speeches, has shown that Europe is of one mind regarding this extremely sensitive period following Camp David. I am sure that we all see that phase, or in any case a change in the situation as very important, and I am sure that the situation has not been compromised, although we realise that, if change does not come about, there is currently a serious risk on both sides that the extremist tendencies present in the two camps may prevail. My opinion is that if we analyse the situation in the region thoroughly – and we have, indeed, talked about the withdrawal of Israel from the Lebanon, the situation in southern Lebanon and developments in Syria – we find that we are in agreement on this matter as well: I feel that this debate is evidence of the convergence of our views – of the agreement of Parliament, the Commission and the Council on the matter – and that Europe has already made a contribution. The quality of its performance is debatable, but Ambassador Moratinos' role in the region and the Council resolutions have certainly been effective. I have to give credit to Commissioner Patten, for his presence in the area and also in Syria – we were able to go to Syria when his mission was finished – had a lasting influence on the development of the situation in Syria. We can draw encouragement from all this and from the continuing work of the Clinton government on this initiative. Nevertheless, I do feel that, today, without professing to be telling anybody what to do and in respect for the two interlocutors and their positions, we should be asking ourselves what we can contribute. I would like to end by suggesting that we could use regional cooperation as a solution to make a European contribution right now before the peace process comes to an end.

Political group: PSE
Thank you for your answer. It was quite comprehensive, but I think you would have to be able to interpret oracles to understand what the representative of the Council really said. Is there to be a common defence policy or not? If the answer is to be interpreted as saying that there is in fact not going to be a common defence policy, then that is sensational news. It would then be extremely interesting to hear the reactions from Paris, Berlin and Madrid and many other places where the Cologne resolutions have in fact been interpreted as a further step in the direction of a common defence policy. Or shall I interpret the answer as saying that there will in actual fact be a common defence policy? Is it really so impossible to answer the question? I do not know how many times I have taken up this question since I first came into this Parliament a few years ago and how many times I’ve tried to obtain clarification and clear interpretations from the Council about what is really going on. Because opinions within the European Union are so diverse and because interpretations of the Cologne resolutions are so totally at odds with each other in different parts of the EU, is it just not on, then, to say quite straightforwardly either “yes, we are on the way towards a common defence policy” or “no, there’s not going to be a common defence policy”? Can we not get a clear answer to this extremely important question?

Political group: Verts-ALE
After the words ‘neighbourhood policy’ the words ‘is not least’ need to be added. I think we all agree on that. (Parliament gave its assent to the tabling of the oral amendment) (Parliament adopted the resolution) *** Joint motion for a resolution(3) on the Northern dimension (Parliament adopted the joint resolution) *** Second report (A5-0370/2003) by Mr Queiró, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on the communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions – European Defence – Industrial and market issues – Towards an EU Defence Equipment Policy [COM(2003) 113 2003/2096(INI)] Regarding Amendment 2

Political group: PSE
Mr President, listening to the last speaker, I have not heard mention of the common market in almost 20 years in this House. If he reads the records of some of the representatives from his own Member State, the United Kingdom, in those days they were extreme -wing s who forecast everything which seems to scare him with the same hysterical sort of attitude to European Union. They forecast all the things which seem to frighten him today. (Applause) Coming from a different part of the political spectrum, it is very interesting to hear him repeat, with the same hysteria, the same concerns. Their capital in those days was Moscow or Budapest. Those were the ideals that they proposed to us and that was the sort of state that they worked for. However, I am glad to say that attitudes in the Labour party in Britain have changed. I want to thank Mr Posselt for his report. The work we do on a Friday morning in Parliament has the same legitimacy as the work we do on a Monday or any other day. Indeed it was commented that on Wednesday evening when the Commissioner spoke about BSE, somebody drew attention to the fact that there were only 17 people in the House. There are a lot more people here this morning and I will regret the passing of Friday when we can carry on a real debate and respond to each other and take the time to listen to each other. Parliament and democracy in Europe will be the poorer for the shortening of the Strasbourg week. Having said that, I welcome this proposal. Parliament can be proud that the proposal to set up this academy originated here, and we are grateful to the Portuguese presidency for taking it up and the Commission and Council for their support. It is a good idea and in the European Union where people have freedom of movement, freedom of trade and the right of establishment, where travellers from Scotland can go to Sicily or Greece, it is only logical to expect to develop a common system of maintaining the rule of law. That common approach is not there at the moment. I come from a state where the police developed out of a chaotic situation – a civil war. But the people at that time established, very wisely, an unarmed police force that is very socially engaged with the communities in which they live and work. You might call them a soft police force but they did succeed in healing the wounds of a civil war and in bringing credibility to the idea of law and order. When I come to continental Europe I am a bit surprised at the way police distance themselves and adopt what appears to be a harder attitude. I will welcome a levelling-out of standards in some Member States in the European Union. All of us have experienced abuses in our own countries. I hope that this academy will help us to have a better understanding of the whole system.

Political group: PPE-DE
Madam President, the self-appointed opponents of globalisation were in the headlines only for a short time. They thought they had exiled the WTO to the desert. Doha's very remoteness brought about a compromise anyway, one that was signed by all 142 members. What a contrast with Seattle in 1999, when debates on content were overshadowed by clashes on the street. I was there when militant demonstrators paralysed our conference and, in professional fashion, immediately supplied photos of the performance they put on. Doha again saw highly polarised debates between the seven hundred accredited NGOs and the national delegations, but it achieved important results. Three years are to be spent working on a new world trade round in order to facilitate further liberalisation of the global economy. The EU had its way in agricultural issues. One aspiration is that subsidies should come to an end, but this is not a precondition of the forthcoming negotiations. It is unfortunate that investments and environmental issues could not yet be put on the negotiations' agenda; they will be on it in two years’ time at the earliest. We all have to give way somewhere – the USA on hormonally treated meat, the labelling of genetically modified produce and the opening up of the textiles market. The EU, too, must dismantle barriers, above all, Commissioner, as regards protection of farming. We must strike a balance between the opening of markets and their regulation. On the one hand, import restrictions are to be dismantled; on the other, the import of low-quality cheap produce is to be prevented, for, firstly, they are a danger to the consumer, and, secondly, pirated copies and infringed patent rights cost businesses billions. We are opposed to total liberalisation. Social security and public services need to be tested, but state monopolies should not be dismantled while private ones are built up. Changes to the agenda are just as important. Let us then call for sustainable protection of the environment, social standards and the punishment of human rights violations. (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE
Madam President, I am rapporteur for the subject of Macedonia which is on tomorrow’s agenda. However, the Commission has just informed us that this subject should be withdrawn. As rapporteur, and also on behalf of the Group of the , I propose that, in accordance with Article 144 of the Rules of Procedure, we delete this subject from tomorrow’s agenda. The reason for this is that we have obtained information to the effect that the Commission wishes firstly to contribute more money by way of aid to Macedonia and secondly to extend the period of aid. I therefore propose that we withdraw the subject from this part-session and instead address it in the November part-session. We therefore refer the subject back to the Committee on Budgets and to the committees which are to issue opinions on this subject, that is to say the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy and the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, I wish to thank the Commissioner for his thorough response. I see that the Commission is devoting thought to traffic safety, even though in my opinion a phrase such as 'pedestrian-friendly car' is wrong, since there can be no such thing as a one thousand or two thousand kilogram steel object which would be friendly to a person when it hits that person at a speed of several tens or even hundreds of kilometres an hour. But the question, above all, was whether the Commission will issue a Directive proposal on the matter, or whether it is prepared to make an agreement with the car manufacturers. Is the reply of the Commissioner to be interpreted as meaning that, at some stage, the idea will come to predominate within the Commission that the quickest results can be obtained by making an agreement with the car manufacturers, in other words that the preferred line of action will be to follow this procedure rather than enacting a Directive on the matter?

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, in order to combat mass unemployment, more flexible models of work need to be found. Temporary agency work is making an increasing contribution to this process. Successful placement on a temporary basis increases the chances of permanent employment. This applies to the low-skilled and the long-term unemployed, but also to specialists. In the opinion which I have drafted on behalf of the Committee on Women's Rights and Equal Opportunities, we refer to the Charter of Fundamental Rights. We have incorporated the right to paid maternity leave and parental leave into the draft directive. We are against every form of discrimination, whether it relates to payment for equal work or work of equal value, is based on sex, or discriminates against temporary workers compared with permanent staff. For us, it was important to ensure that temporary workers should not be used to break strikes or as a means of imposing radical cuts in full-time jobs or permanent staff. Men still account for more than three-quarters of temporary workers. It is the difficulty in achieving a balance between work and family life that explains why there are far fewer women in this category . Yet temporary work in particular allows adaptation to individual needs, and offers women good opportunities to enter the workforce or return to work. There are problems in practice, however. In Germany, temporary work agencies, known as Personnel Service Agencies, are now being established in the Employment Offices; as part of the public sector, they are subsidised from taxation and bear no commercial risks. This puts the private temporary work agencies at a severe disadvantage. I can tell the rapporteur, Mrs van den Burg, that the Federal Government is not implementing its supposedly groundbreaking concepts on a one-to-one basis, as it had pledged, but is watering them down. Temporary agency staff are to be paid as much as the permanent staff in the user company from day one. Yet equal pay from the start and the exclusive application of collective agreements are an impediment to temporary work. It was unfortunate that my proposal to introduce a six-month qualifying period at European level failed to secure a majority. In the Group of the European People’s Party, we are therefore developing a compromise which takes appropriate account of the different rules in the Member States and respects the subsidiarity principle.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, as we, in this Parliament, tend less towards the intergovernmental side, I would replace the word 'Council' here by 'Commission'. I would, by the way, like to congratulate Mr van Orden, by dint of whose initiative Article 5 of the Treaty on European Union is to be incorporated into the constitution in its entirety, without any derogation! (Applause) (Parliament agreed to take into account the oral amendment) (Parliament adopted the resolution) *** Report (A5-0286/2002) by Mr Titley, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on the Council’s Third Annual Report according to Operative Provision 8 of the European Union Code of Conduct on Arms Exports [2001/2254(INI)] (Parliament adopted the resolution) *** Report (A5-278/2002) by Mrs Boudjenah, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the European Parliament’s recommendations to the Commission concerning the negotiation of the Economic Partnership Agreements with the ACP countries and regions [2002/2097(INI)] (Parliament adopted the resolution)(2) *** EXPLANATIONS OF VOTE - Eurig Wyn report (A5-0267/2002)

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, I very much welcome the fact that we as Parliament also fulfil our monitoring competences and that we take a look at directives which meet with a great deal of criticism in the Member States. Not only do they meet with a great deal of criticism in the Member States, they also cause enormous division in the European Parliament. I would like to comment on two directives today. These are the habitats directive and the nitrates directive. What do these two directives have in common? The fact that the Member States have been granted far-reaching powers to designate nature reserves, species to be protected, and certainly as far as the nitrates directive is concerned, the sensitive areas. There are now an increasing number of complaints from members of the Dutch Lower Chamber of the States General who ask us what in God’s name we have been up to. However, it is not Europe which prescribed that the whole of the Netherlands should be designated a nitrate-sensitive area. It is the Netherlands itself which decided to do so. It is then up to us, with the kind help of a number of MEPs, to see how, by means of derogation requests, we can undo the nitrate legislation, for example, in order to reach the goal, this being a reduction in nitrate levels, in a decent fashion. The same applies to the habitats directive. Today’s tragedy, a cross-border industrial site between Aachen and Maastricht, has been brought to a standstill for the umpteenth time because of two European hamsters. These hamsters were spirited away by a campaign group for the protection and preservation of this species who believed that, if they abducted the hamsters, they could get them to mate. But forced mating is something which does not work, even in the animal kingdom. Once again, for the umpteenth time, the Council of State in the Netherlands brought a cross-border industrial site to a standstill. However, having scrutinised the habitats directive and having correctly interpreted the regulation on areas where preservation is required, we see that this measure was unnecessary. What should happen now, and that is why I support the report on the habitats directive, and most certainly the nitrates directive, is for the European Commission to make it quite clear – and perhaps lay down in writing in clear Dutch language – what is and is not possible. We agree on the principles, they are sound, but the way in which the Member States deal with them is disgraceful by any standard.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, I should like to congratulate you on the very calm and efficient way in which you chaired that vote. It augurs well. However, there is hardly any other Parliament which would have voted that number of amendments to a report. Few Members in this House can have been expected to know what they were voting on. They are at the mercy of their colleagues and the whips. The procedure does little to enhance democracy and it is an unedifying and indeed incomprehensible spectacle for citizens who are following our work. (Applause) I urge you, in your term in office, to ensure a thorough reform of the decision-making procedures of this Assembly. (Applause)

Political group: ELDR
Can I say that we fully understand the wish of the Commission and Council to ensure the success of the telecom package in advance of the Laeken Summit. It is vital to achieve the Lisbon targets, but as the shadow rapporteur, I wish to complain about the procedure. I also object to the deals which have been struck at the last minute behind closed doors resulting in a compromise package which seriously weakens the provisions for must-carry services and for people with special needs and disabilities. These were approved unanimously in the Legal Affairs Committee. It was of course disappointing that the British Conservative rapporteur informed me of his decision to abandon these important provisions for consumers and users in order to achieve political expediency. My delegation or the Labour MEPs voted in favour to maintain the committee's positions on these important provisions. Can we remind perhaps the Commission and Council that we are co-legislators, not co-drafters of declarations which have no legal force and rely on the Commission's goodwill to deliver on must-carry. We will, of course, monitor the Commission's progress to deliver on these provisions. I have to say that today was a victory for Laeken, for the Commission and Council on the telecoms package, but it was not a victory for democracy in this House.

Political group: PSE