GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
I opposed the Commission's proposal to harmonise VAT between state postal services like the Royal Mail and private sector delivery services. The Commission’s bad timing was not lost on Scotland with the debate taking place in arguably the busiest week for postal services across Europe and I am glad it got the knock-back it deserved. It is often rightly assumed and argued that many of us now have access to e-mail and other communications technology and that the cost of postage stamps is irrelevant. However, many pensioners and low-income households still depend on reliable and affordable postal services. It would be their pockets which would be hit hardest if VAT was put onto the price of a stamp. I call upon the Commission to reflect on this and shelve the proposal.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, Commissioner, the Council has taken a significant step towards the militarisation of the European Union with its decision to develop the military crisis management corps. The European Union has shown just how well it understands these crises by contributing to the disintegration of Yugoslavia, particularly with its barbarous and murderous attacks on the Yugoslav people. It has shown its understanding by taking part in the occupation of Kosovo and in its continuing efforts to overturn the democratically-elected Yugoslav leadership. The Council has decided to curtail democracy still further by abolishing the unanimity rule, even on extremely important issues. The decision to extend candidate status to Turkey is, without a doubt, a political gesture towards the Turkish regime, despite the fact that it has made no move whatsoever towards fulfilling the conditions set by the European Union itself. The Council is encouraging Turkey to continue with its violations of human rights, its genocide of the Kurdish people, its occupation of 38% of Cypriot territory and its territorial claims in the Aegean. At the same time, it is thwarting the struggle of the Turkish people, for whom we feel solidarity. The decisions in Helsinki illustrate quite clearly that behind the show of democracy and behind the lofty words on human rights lurk the creeping fascism of imperialist interests and violence against anybody who resists the new order of things. However, the people of Europe are gradually overcoming their torpor following the overthrow of socialism in Europe and are preparing for a counter-attack.

Political group: GUE-NGL
PPE-), chairman of the Committee on Budgetary Control. – (DE) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we postponed the vote on this report from yesterday to today because we were waiting for an official response from the Council. That was the reason given on Monday by the chairman of the Group, Mr Baron Crespo. We went along with that. However, we still do not have an official answer now. An unofficial, possible answer from the Council, which was given to me today in the form of an unofficial translation, is what I actually have in front of me as chairman of the committee. I do not think that it is fair to either the Council or the committee, which has after all not even been able to examine this material, for us now to set about the discharge procedure and decide yes or no or whether to postpone a decision. I think a reasonable course of action is to wait for the following year, for 2001, where budget lines are already shown for the foreign and security policy and home affairs, and in the meantime to reflect calmly on the discharge problem both on our own and in discussion with the Council. That is why I would ask that these matters be dealt with in a clear and transparent procedure in the committee responsible, so that we can also make a well-founded judgment. I would therefore ask our rapporteur, and also the Group, to abandon this very hasty, indeed perhaps over hasty, procedure.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, having seen over the years very difficult discussions in Parliament relating to this subject, it is indeed a pleasure for me this evening to see such widespread support for this report. The sense of consensus is to be welcomed. It is a good working document and we have a good basis to start working, so I congratulate the Commission as well. I feel slightly uncomfortable, given that Ireland is the home of the Dublin Convention and has only very recently begun to receive an appreciable number of refugees and asylum seekers, that unfortunately, the Dublin Convention is not working terribly well. About 85% of the people arriving in Ireland have not been stopped at the original port of call or processed in the country in which they originally arrived in the Community. While I can fully appreciate and have great sympathy with the concerns of colleagues calling for burden-sharing, there is a fairly large amount of informal burden-sharing going on anyway. Reception countries are happily turning a blind eye to the people passing through their countries on the way to third countries. Having said that, I believe very strongly that we need to harmonise legal procedures so that we can offer a safe haven to those many people seeking refuge in the Community and also so as to have a humane and caring reception procedure that is uniform throughout the Community. Because of the work I have been doing in this particular area I am very concerned about the criminal activities of some asylum seekers who are exploiting members of their own communities, through trafficking in women and young people. Cooperation between police forces, where there is widespread information on prostitution amongst young girls in the Member States, has unfortunately to be an intrinsic part of our asylum policy. What is clear, particularly in my own country at the moment, is that we must challenge the alarming rise in racism and xenophobia within our communities. It is a deeply disturbing phenomenon in my own country. We need clear implementation of good, humane laws and we will all benefit from them.

Political group: PPE-DE
Sport is a sector in which major inequalities between men and women still exist. I therefore agree with this report and support the initiatives intended to reduce unequal treatment in terms of the income, financial resources and vocational retraining of top-level athletes. Women’s participation must be promoted in positions of leadership, in technical and medical teams and on refereeing and adjudication boards. Particular attention must be paid to the effects of sport on athletes’ health, to preventing and combating sexual abuse and harassment and to increasing media coverage of women’s sport. Sport in schools is clearly in decline. The role of physical and sports education must be emphasised and included in suitable training for teachers and measures must be adopted to enable women to practise sports in their spare time and develop opportunities for practising at their workplace. Lastly, women’s participation in sport must be promoted in Community programmes and actions, and the appropriate human and financial resources must be provided, as well as the necessary mechanisms for monitoring and following up these actions.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, we need to change this amendment so that it better reflects the realities of the Treaty of Nice. I would ask that the last two words be deleted and that you accept that as an oral amendment. The President established that at least 32 Members objected to the oral amendment. (Parliament adopted the joint resolution)

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, Commissioner Bolkestein, I would also like to thank Mr Karas, because the Basel II agenda is naturally very important for us and the study by PricewaterhouseCoopers is an important basis for the amendments that we can still make to the Basel II rules. For us in this House, however, it is especially important to find out how the introduction of Basel II will impact on our small- and medium-sized businesses in particular and which tasks still have to be addressed by the finance ministers and others in order to ensure the successful introduction of Basel II. I think that here, the Commission should demonstrate, with some form of best-practice/benchmark impact analysis, how the successful introduction of Basel II can be guaranteed.

Political group: PPE-DE
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to begin by congratulating Mr Morillon on his excellent report. His ability to achieve very broad consensus in this House on this extremely important issue is demonstrated not only by this debate, but also by the relatively few amendments that have been tabled. Comparing that with the situation in similar debates as recently as five years ago, we see that there is today in this House very broad consensus on the need for a European defence contribution. On that I congratulate Mr Morillon. His report is an important building block in the development of a security strategy for the European Union. Why is that necessary? We took note last September of the United States' new security strategy. Week in and week out, we are at present seeing how systematically the United States implements it. What we Europeans need is a European security strategy to be a response to that. We Europeans need, as the first building block in our common foreign policy, to start by together defining what our security interests are. I believe this to be perfectly possible. Firstly, there is broad consensus about the European Union's ability, within the NATO framework, to defend itself against any conceivable aggressor, whether this be done together with our allies, or, if need be, independently. I would very much welcome a decision by the Convention to propose a mutual support clause for the new constitution of the European Union. We should, secondly, be developing our capacities, so we still need time to make necessary contributions to crisis management in the area around the European Union, which must be both civil and military. That is not yet the case today, and we have not yet been able to do that independently, but it is a capacity that we must develop. Thirdly, we in the European Union should be in a position to carry out rescue operations anywhere in the world and at any time, where the safety of European citizens is involved. Those are three more building blocks towards a security strategy for the European Union. If we develop one, we must take into account the experiences we have had of comparable major projects, such as the internal market or the European currency. These were successful only because we had specific requirements on content and time, because we were clear about what we want to do and when we wanted to be able to do it. The Morillon Report deals with this issue in a number of ways. What the public expects of the European Union is peace, security and stability. We in the European Parliament must do our bit to ensure that the European Union does, as a whole, live up to these expectations.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, you have made a very positive appraisal of the Bonn Conference which, from your point of view, I can understand. In all honesty, however, although there has been progress in secondary theatres of war, as it were, for example how negotiations should be conducted, what working parties should be set up, no progress has been made on the main issue, i.e. what should be done about emission rights and emissions trading. That is a pity because, as far as I can see, that is the main issue, especially in view of the fact that one large country, one contracting partner, is saying we want to be able to buy ourselves out of all our emissions obligations. That this country is able to use internal political debate, i.e. the imminent election campaign in the USA, to block us and the other contracting States from making further progress on this central issue is scandalous! As far as I can see, the decisive question is this: how can we inject new momentum into this process and encourage greater involvement on the part of this large contracting State on the other side of the Atlantic? How can we achieve progress in coming years and involve the United States in this? As far as I am concerned, there can be no question of allowing countries to buy their way out of all their emission obligations, because what that means, in essence, is that we and the USA are able to absolve ourselves from our own obligations at the expense of less developed countries. We overcame imperialism in the 19th century; surely we are not going to pave the way for imperialism in the 21st century!

Political group: PSE
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, today I defended my position and that of my group, as did my fellow Members in the debates in committee, expressing a completely favourable opinion of the establishment of the European Maritime Safety Agency. We are all thinking of the Erika disaster and other serious accidents involving oil tankers and the ship that spilled chemical products off the coast of Galicia, which have caused huge and irreparable damage and also deaths. It is these tragedies that underlie this decision. Now, in the little time that I have, I wish to remind you that in the next six months, perhaps as early as in Gothenburg, the Council must decide on the location of the agency. I hope that it chooses a country with maritime traditions and history, and that amongst the countries that fulfil these conditions, the choice goes to the Galician coast, which sees the majority of the maritime traffic that unites Europe with the other continents and where the greatest number of accidents occurs, including the extremely serious ones that I have just mentioned. If my proposal were acted on, I can assure you that the decision would receive the support and the warmth of Galician society.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, in common with other speakers, I should like to congratulate the rapporteur on her very comprehensive and commendable report containing a series of proposals which decision makers around the world ought to take on board and from which they ought to draw inspiration. The problem with a report like this, however, is that it does not list its many proposals in order of priority. Nor, I freely admit, was that the intention. We are therefore easily in danger, however, of just moving on to the next subject once the vote has taken place. I therefore wish to propose that we assign a level of priority to our next step and that we begin with what we can do in practical terms to put these proposals into practice in connection with the civil and military tool which is being developed in the course of these very months. I shall therefore urge the Council, Mr Solana and the Commission, including Chris Patten, to go through the many ideas in the report and draw inspiration from them and then introduce these ideas and proposals into the work which is going on right now before our very eyes and the future practical implementation of which we unfortunately do not know very much about. It may be a very good test of what all the words regarding equality, mainstreaming, the strengthening of the role of women etc. means in practice. Let us begin with practical measures. The Council and the Commission ought shortly to be coming back to Parliament with a report on what could be done. There are many issues on the table to set to work on, for example, police education or the training of military personnel. There is certainly cause for increasing understanding of the fact that rape really is an atrocity that cannot be accepted, just as we cannot accept torture either. There could also be training in involving NGOs and in developing facilities for people affected by crises etc. We could subsequently hold hearings, seminars etc. on these subjects. We should also, into the bargain, like to see openness about the whole process and about the development of these preventative measures. If this could happen on the basis of involving women, then we might perhaps, suddenly and quite unexpectedly, have given the EU a human face in one particular area.

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, for several months now, there has been a real commotion among the Western countries with regard to Iraq. The inspections stopped in 1998 and President Bush discovered in 2002 that Iraq was once again a threat. This is a serious matter, as, through the Iraqi affair, the US has in fact tried to gain support for a new concept in international relations, the concept of pre-emptive war. They have asked that UN inspectors be allowed to return unconditionally to Iraq. The Iraqi Government agreed to this. Now, it is the United States that will not agree to the UN inspectors going to Iraq. They now want to adopt a resolution that would allow them automatic recourse to force. President Bush’s speech yesterday did not go back on this condition in any way. He maintains this condition. In reality, the United States covet Iraqi oil resources, control of which would allow them to dictate price policies to the rest of the world. Beware! The fight against terrorism, after the savage attacks of September 11, must not, in the hands of the American Government, become an imperial strategy to conquer the world. A military intervention against Iraq would have terrifying consequences today in the Middle East. It would unleash all kinds of fanaticism and discrimination against ethnic minorities. It would encourage a surge in Islamic fundamentalism. A war against Iraq – and we must realise this today – a war against Iraq would be considered by Arab-Muslim public opinion as a war against the entire Arab-Muslim world. That is why, today, no Arab regime supports Washington’s position. Two countries have stated their opposition to this strategy: France and Germany. Well, I consider that to be an honour for Europe. If a new resolution had to be adopted, under no circumstances must it include the principle of automatic recourse to force. We must not accept the use of the Security Council as an instrument. I would also like to ask Mr Patten and Mr Haarder a question: why do the European Union and the Commission not suggest to the Arab League, to all the Arab countries, that they take a common initiative to reintegrate Iraq and lift the embargo? That is the best way of fighting for the renaissance of democracy in Iraq.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Firstly, it is a great pleasure to have the Commissioner here. I have been listening to the debate on the television in my office and I heard your answers to my colleagues. I want to follow up on Mr Fatuzzo's question because it is in my report on information and communication technology and its impact on SMEs. I hope you will agree with one of the recommendations I made in the report, which is that there are many older people who have retired at 55-plus who would be delighted to return to employment if there was some financial incentive for them to do so. Information and communication technology is an area where we could use them, if there were financial incentives to train them. Afterwards, if they were working, it would be important not to tax them on their income because they have a pension as well. This would have two impacts. Firstly, it would allow older people to work and still use their skills. Therefore their disposable incomes would have an impact on rural economies because they would tend to spend that income. Secondly, we would not be so dependent on imported labour. Obviously a high birth rate is a good thing, but it would take years before this was reflected in the labour force. My recommendation would provide a quick solution. I should like to hear the Commissioner's view on it.

Political group: PPE-DE
I would like to hear the Commissioner's view on Amendment No 45. I may have missed it in the list she gave out.

Political group: PPE-DE
chairman of the Committee on Budgets. – Mr President, it clarifies points 1 and 3 but I am not sure about point 2. I will settle for clarification on point 2 at 9 a.m. tomorrow morning if that is necessary, but I was not sure exactly what you said on the second point.

Political group: PSE
Thank you, Commissioner Nielson, for a very full and in many parts interesting reply. I believe we agree that this is one of the most serious epidemics and not only one of the most serious humanitarian catastrophes but one of the most serious economic catastrophes the world has even seen. As much as ten years ago, based on the ways the disease was spread, sexual practices of the time and the widespread poverty in many African countries, experts were able to make forecasts showing that there would be a spread similar to that which we have today and which has had such incredibly tragic consequences. Unfortunately we are now able to make the same forecasts for other parts of the world which were infected later, and the outlook is similar. The only way to proceed is, naturally, prevention with a mixture of support initiatives for those already affected and preventive initiatives, partly in the form of information and education and partly in the form of efforts to find a vaccine. I naturally agree with the Commissioner that no problems will be solved simply by setting up a fund. I also agree with many of the requirements for such a mechanism which Mr Nielson sets out. At the same time, it was my experience in setting up UNAIDS, of whose board I was a member, that we constantly had too little money and were able to implement far too few ambitious initiatives. During the years of setting up the project we actually had no money whatsoever to support the national initiatives in the countries most affected. At the same time, as Mr Nielson has stated, the UN bodies’ normal budgets have fallen, which means that we are suffering from a major lack of money. I am sure that money is needed to achieve success in terms of research and active initiatives at national level. I therefore believe that Kofi Annan’s initiative is good, as long as this mechanism can be set up in a good and non-bureaucratic way. I appreciate that the Commission cannot conjure up money from nowhere. However, there was a major surplus in the EU budget for last year which has recently been returned to the Member States. It must surely have been possible in such an extraordinary situation to gain support from the Council for a substantial aid package. It would otherwise look very strange, bearing in mind the Commission’s very great commitment in the course of last year and the initiative in which Mr Nielson and others were involved in September – October 2000. I would also like to test Mr Nielson a little further. Given that the soundings ahead of the New York Summit in a little under a month’s time are positive and that this mechanism can be set up properly, what plans are there for us in the EU, Member States and the EU itself, to be able to put forward a decent sum to bolster the preventive work?

Political group: PPE-DE
I wish to record my absolute abhorrence of the war against Iraq, which is in breach of international law and natural justice. Unilateral action by the US and UK Governments endangers world peace, regional stability and undermines the authority of the United Nations. I am deeply disappointed at some Member States and applicant countries who give military support to the conflict. I am further disappointed at the hypocritical stance adopted by the Irish Government. It parades a fictitious commitment to neutrality while allowing US army planes to use Shannon airport despite the clear condemnation by the Irish people of the action in which these planes are engaged. I call on Parliament to demand the immediate end of this illegal war. Parliament should call upon the United Nations Security Council to be convened, to take control of the situation and to mandate the Secretary-General to initiate steps to stop the war. The United Nations Security Council should also authorise the deployment of UN human rights monitors throughout Iraq. Iraqi and Kurdish authorities should provide the monitors with full access and cooperation to protect the Iraqi population, including the Kurdish population of northern Iraq, now potentially at risk of attack from Turkey.

Political group: PSE