GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, once again, in this Parliament, we are discussing Angola. News comes through on a regular basis and is always sad. The latest report describes an attack on three passenger vehicles in southern Kwanza last Sunday, in which dozens of people were killed. No one has yet claimed responsibility for this attack. Previous to this, there had been the attack on the train we are condemning today, which caused the deaths of more than two hundred people and for which UNITA claimed responsibility. Lives have been wasted and innocent blood has been spilled in a bout of violence that we can only condemn. We condemn UNITA today with the same independence with which, in February, we condemned the MPLA and the Angolan government for persecuting journalists. More important, however, than condemning those who stubbornly continue to wage war, and criticising both sides, which undoubtedly deserve our criticism for pursuing this path of confrontation, the most important and most useful thing may be to foster peace. This Parliament can contribute to encouraging all those in Angola tired of war and wanting a better future. Along with many other Members of this House, specifically Mr Ribeiro e Castro, I signed a proposal to award the Sakharov prize to Zacarias Kamuenho, Archbishop of Huambo and Chairman of the Episcopal Conference of Angola and São Tomé. I urge all of you to use this gesture as a means to give courage to all those in Angola who wish to see peace prevail.

Political group: PPE-DE
Madam President, I would like to say, with reference to Mr Konrad's report on the opening up of the motor trade and automotive services, that I take a thoroughly positive view of the initiatives taken by the Commission and by Commissioner Monti. It was for that reason that I collaborated with the rapporteur in several attempts at finding new ways forward and making proposals, some of which were incorporated, in order to meet consumers and above all small and medium-sized enterprises halfway, and to support our smaller and weaker trading partners for the sake of more healthy competition. I believe this to be necessary, and that there is no justification for the lobbying tactics and political interventions that were used to maintain certain monopolies. I hope that the future will see further steps taken in this direction, founded on the compromise that has been adopted.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, I would like us to cast our minds back to September 11 2001. After those events we all agreed that the world had changed. We appreciated that global terrorism, a terrorism well-financed and organised with no clear political objective beyond creating chaos, required a new approach to security. It was clear that we can no longer take a passive approach. We can no longer sit on the sidelines tut-tutting when faced with dangerous, repressive regimes prepared to murder their own people, threaten regional security and nurture terrorism. We saw that we needed a pro-active approach, we needed to develop a concept of global justice for all people and to build a worldwide security system based on active involvement. We followed through on that in relation to Afghanistan, but now when faced with a difficult and dangerous crisis, we seem to have retreated into a comfort zone of our old certainties. We have particularly retreated to the cold war attitude towards the United States. We feel that the transatlantic relationship is some sort of zero-sum game. For one side to win, the other side has to lose. If we continue that process the world will become much more secure because every issue and every crisis will be divisive as we try to gather around separate poles. We need transatlantic partnership for the benefit of world security. We must ensure that we get global certainties and agreements for the future and not re-fight old battles. It may well be that the structures we set up after the second world war are not suitable for dealing with the post-September 11 world. In that case we should be working to the future, thinking about how we rebuild Iraq with United Nations support and how we secure peace in Iraq whilst respecting the rights of Iraqi people to their own future. As I speak, many thousands of my own countrymen and women are putting their lives at risk to free a people from tyranny. Many people do not agree with that war and I respect their views but I ask that this Chamber respects the position of the men and women whose lives are at risk. I am frankly amazed that, amongst all this talk of legality, I have not heard one word about Iraqi treatment of prisoners of war, which is contrary to the Geneva Convention. I have not heard one word of condemnation of Iraqi troops killing their own people in Basra. Imagine what British troops feel like seeing that happen and being powerless to stop it. (Applause)

Political group: PSE
Mr President, I too would like to congratulate Mrs Rothe. I think that she has carried out excellent work and, step by step, has led this process towards an increasingly positive outcome. I agree with Mr Turmes that the decision which we hopefully will take tomorrow is an historic one. It means the European Union taking a highly significant step towards a different energy system, a system which gives serious consideration to the climate issue and the need to diversify the energy system and to ensure that an increased proportion of our energy comes from energy sources which do not have an adverse effect on nature or the climate. A transition to renewable energy sources is an important step. In parallel, major efforts must be made to ensure that our energy is used more efficiently. We have established a target in the directive whereby at least 22 percent of electricity is to come from renewable energy sources. Like Mr Turmes, I am an optimist in this respect. If demand increases, we know that performance and quality will increase and costs fall. This is the rule of thumb for all new technology. Of course, such a development is conditional upon energy policy generally being developed in the right direction. It is conditional upon subsidies for fossil fuels, particularly coal, being phased out, external costs for various energy sources being internalised in prices and research receiving a considerable boost. The development we are now seeing is vital for Europe. It is naturally also vital for the candidate countries and the developing countries. I hope that, within the framework of this programme and the EU’s operations as a whole, we shall be able to develop systems which support candidate countries and developing countries alike in moving in this direction.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, the clarity of the resolution on which we are now voting leaves nothing to be desired. As has already been quoted by other fellow Members, Turkmenistan is ‘one of the worst totalitarian systems in the world’. The situation in other Central Asian countries is perhaps a little better, but there, too, the human rights situation is abominable. Does that mean that Europe should ignore Central Asia? My answer is ‘no’, and for two reasons. The first is the strategic goals. Ignoring that region will not do. It is not in Europe’s interests to let those countries, which export corruption and instability as well as oil and gas, remain ‘rogue states’. There is a second reason, too, which is the necessity – already mentioned by some fellow Members – of doing business regarding the large quantities of oil and gas in that region. To some politicians, however, and sadly also some fellow MEPs, that means that we have to do business first and foremost, and that we should just mention human rights, but on no account focus attention on them too much. Let us not repeat the mistakes of the past, when, on account of our need for oil from the Middle East, we kept quiet about the human rights violations in Saudi Arabia. It is true that Europe needs oil and gas, including from that region, but that also means that those countries need us, and this provides us with the opportunity of giving priority to the human rights situation – to improving it, in particular – in our dealings with those countries, and only then speaking about oil. Referring to EU policy in Kosovo I would say: ‘standards before oil’.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Green light – On behalf of my group I would like to express my total support for an early enlargement, stressing the principle of equal treatment with regard to the Copenhagen criteria. I hope that the signature of the Accession Treaty will represent the final unification of our continent, leaving behind the wars which desolated our peoples and drew up borders by force. The new and strengthened Union will be a continent with a shared destiny of peace, democracy and freedom. Solidarity – This unprecedented enlargement brings new challenges for the Union. We will need an even greater spirit of solidarity in all our common policies, and we will have to strengthen the institutional capacities of the Union. The current and future Members will have to make the greatest possible effort, replacing national egotism with Community solidarity in order to find, as the Treaties demand, a united European voice in world political fora. Budgetary conflict – Although an agreement was reached at the last moment, I must strongly criticise the Council’s unilateral action of including budgetary figures in the Accession Treaty. This is an unprecedented action which constitutes a serious attack on the budgetary competences of our House and the Interinstitutional Agreement of 1999.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Florenz, I think these directives require us to consider in principle whether we want further exemptions for many governmental bodies, as the individual citizen does not, of course, care whether the aircraft causing the noise are civilian or military. This is not, then, about ruling on what measures in terms of military tactics should be under discussion, but only about arranging flights in the context of a noise indicator and an action plan in such a way that overall noise does not exceed the level tolerable by individuals. I believe that we should steer our joint efforts towards finding out what people find acceptable or intolerable and decide on that basis what steps to take. There is a need for more research on this. It has, for example, not yet been ascertained whether an average noise level is dangerous, or individual very high levels. We therefore need even more understanding of causes, effects and connections. Hence, too, our demand that we should not immediately announce a framework directive to which we attach specified noise indicators and limit values. Rather, we should say that we want to obtain the land registers first and then, in three years' time, to adopt appropriate subsidiary directives with quality standards for noise policy. Secondly – and in my view this is at least as important – we should also be carefully re-examining individual noise emission sources in order to find out how, at European level – and perhaps more quickly and more effectively than by means of local action plans – we might achieve a reduction in the noise from aircraft and motor vehicles caused, for example, by their tyres. So we also need noise reduction at the emission sources.

Political group: PSE
The report by the European Central Bank under discussion covers its 2nd year in operation following the start of the third stage of EMU. This is precisely why the European Parliament needs to be even stricter and more demanding in its criticism of the ECB’s annual report, because there are results which hit the workers and because it supports closer links between the general guidelines to economic policy and the stability and convergence programmes. On the pretext of fighting inflation and adhering strictly to the Stability Pact, that ‘plague’ on the workers, the ECB has activated the sanctions mechanism in order to achieve that wonder of wonders, price stability, while ignoring the economic and social impact of its decisions. It announces that wage policy is to be modernised, for which read flexible and insecure labour, and it is pushing for privatisation across the board in order to promote the competitiveness of and reward big business. But it says nothing about speculation and 'scams' on the money markets, given that its policy of cutting interest rates does everything it can to support them. So far, the European Central Bank has raised or lowered its interest rates in line with US interest rates in a bid to fund speculation. Will Mr Duisenberg tell us if he subscribes to the views of his counterpart, Mr pan, who feels that the new growth cycle should be based on greater returns from the huge amount of capital at the disposal of companies whose performance is what will shore up stock prices and trigger a new round of investments? He probably agrees because he has told us that the executive board of the ECB is continuing to monitor wage developments and trends in domestic and foreign demand and that, despite the oil crisis, wage increases were moderate, which he described as highly positive, stressing that inflation will be kept to 2% in 2002 thanks to wage restraint, while the monopolies’ profits will, of course, keep on rising. What else can we say? The report and the governor of the ECB say it all. They have told us about the acutely negative liberal policy which pushes economies into recession and what they have announced for the workers is greater unemployment, the abolition of everything they have fought for and a guaranteed level of poverty, given that prosperity is reserved for big business, which is getting bigger by the day. We are therefore against the European Parliament’s supporting the policy of the ECB, because it is a policy which generates more poverty for the many, i.e. for the workers, and more profit for the few, i.e. for the European monopolies. It is a policy of inequality and increased exploitation of the workers. That is why the MEPs of the Communist Party of Greece voted against the report and we believe that the people will unite in their fight to overturn this anti-grass roots, barbaric and inhumane policy.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Madam President, I am not about to enter into this debate, but I would just like to draw your attention and my fellow Members’ attention to another matter concerning this city, which is the extremely sensitive and worrying situation of a group of Hungarian gypsies who arrived in Strasbourg on 24 July, following persecution and racial discrimination in their own country, and who are seeking political asylum not only in our country, but also in other European Union countries. I do not wish to go into the details of the situation, but the essence of the problem is of very direct concern to us since, on the one hand it provides a very tangible and specific illustration of the problems involved in applying the Copenhagen criteria, which require urgent solutions, and on the other hand, the problems that certain countries that are candidates for membership of the European Union have in fulfilling the terms of the treaty. Then again, it also forces us to state, once again, that respect for minorities and human rights must be assessed in the same way and on a par with compliance with the economic criteria. So, Madam President, and I believe you are in complete agreement with this opinion, which is also in line with the opinions adopted by this House on these issues, I should like to see the matter referred to the joint parliamentary committee, in this case the EU-Hungary Joint Parliamentary Committee, at your request, as a matter of urgency. The group of 46 people who are here, Madam President, the Zamoli gypsies, are placing all their hope in the ability of this House to achieve progress in these matters.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, it is extremely important not only that we phase out the single-hull oil tankers, but also that we realise there will then be 200 to 300 ships out there somewhere. Not only does Parliament have to accept responsibility for promoting the phasing out of these tankers, it must also accept responsibility for waste management, for the correct disposal and scrapping of ships. I did try to incorporate this in this resolution, but I think that we will have every opportunity to include our need to accept responsibility for the dismantlement of these ships as well in the Sterckx report. I feel that we must follow the fast-track procedure Mr Piecyk is proposing and I shall therefore withdraw my amendments. (Parliament adopted the legislative resolution) *** Report (A5-0151/2003) by Alexander de Roo, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive amending Directive 1999/32/EC as regards the sulphur content of marine fuels (COM(2002) 595 – C5-0558/2002 – 2002/0259(COD)) (Parliament adopted the legislative resolution) *** Report (A5-0168/2003) by Ian Stewart Hudghton, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council regulation for the conservation of fishery resources through technical measures for the protection of juveniles of marine organisms (COM(2002) 672 – C5-0026/2003 – 2002/0275(CNS)) (Parliament adopted the legislative resolution) *** Report (A5-0165/2003) by Struan Stevenson, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council regulation on the management of the fishing effort relating to certain Community fishing areas and resources and modifying Regulation (EEC) 2847/93 (COM(2002) 739 – C5-0030/2003 – 2002/0295(CNS)) Before the vote:

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, I would like to express my extreme disappointment at the fact that the President of the Court of Auditors did not give his report yesterday. He should have given his report. He should have cancelled any other engagements he had. He should have prioritised giving that report to Parliament. We only ask him to do that once a year, and any other engagement should have been secondary to this very important opportunity to let us know exactly how he feels about the European institutions. I am very disappointed, and I would ask you to write to the President of the Court of Auditors to express the disappointment of the House.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, Madam Vice-President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, the heavy goods vehicles that travel through Austria are seen by all Austrians as an important issue in home affairs policy. It was important when what was known as the Transit Agreement was being negotiated between 1992 and 1994, a time when we even made our consent to membership of the Community conditional upon the finding of a sound and forward-looking solution to this problem. Just as we did then, we see the Transit Regulation as a sort of leading issue. Neither then nor now did we, or do we, want some sort of preferential treatment in the form of special arrangements for our country that would amount to long-term derogations from the Internal Market. What we then wanted, and what we continue to seek, is an EU transport policy that points the way for others to follow by taking into account, along with the freedoms of the internal market, concerns relating to those parts of the environment affected by the traffic, especially in sensitive areas, and the concerns of the people who live near such traffic. We regard these concerns of ours as being in harmony with the Commission's objectives as regards transport. In its Transport White Paper, which we shall soon be discussing, it promises that the planned new transport infrastructure costs directive will include provisions on the imposition of charges for the use of the infrastructure as well as on the integration of the external costs, with such provisions reflecting serious consideration of the use of cross-subsidies to benefit more environmentally friendly means of transport. We want all those things, too. That is why it is so important that no gap should be allowed to occur between the expiry of the transit regime and the new directive entering into force. That is also why we need an appropriate transitional regime. The Danish Presidency of the Council, which worked hard to achieve a compromise at Council level between all those concerned with this highly touchy issue, came close to achieving its objective, narrowly missing it only because there were no longer sufficient transport ministers coming to Brussels. Now, following our resolution in Parliament, we will be calling on the Council, at the meeting of its transport ministers, to pass a formal resolution adopting the compromise which has already been arrived at in this matter, and it would be important in view of this if we in this House were also to be able to express our belief in a joint, sound, and forward-looking solution to this problem. On behalf of all the Austrian Members of this House, I therefore ask you to give every possible support to Amendment No 18, which enjoys the essential backing of all four of the political groupings in Austria. The environment, and the people who live in the affected areas, will thank us for it.

Political group: PPE-DE
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in view of the recent tragedy involving the Prestige, I believe that these are worrying times for both the Galician fishermen, who are awaiting the Commission’s response, and who do not want these terrible events to happen again anywhere, and for all good people who defend the environment and sustainable development. I would firstly like to congratulate Mr Souchet and Mr Busk on the quality of their reports; and with regard to the report which in the end the chairman of the committee has taken charge of, I will comment on recital K and Amendment No 23. The area reserved for traditional fishing within a band of 6 miles – which was subsequently increased to 12 and extended to all Member States – was extended, for the last time, within the framework of the reform of the common fisheries policy of 1992, for a period of ten years. We have therefore been in a provisional situation for thirty years. It appears that the aim was to allow for a progressive adaptation of the small-scale coastal fleet. And if they have not carried it out, I do not know when they are going to do so. The European Commission’s proposal on the timetable for the reform of the common fisheries policy advocates permanently maintaining the prohibition of fishing within 12 miles – a proposal, by the way, whose legal validity has been called into question. I believe that, at a time when we are facing enlargement and we have a Convention under way, paradoxically, this proposal would mark the beginning of a period of renationalisation of Community waters contrary to the principle of equal access for fishing vessels to all European Union stocks, which would also involve the additional risk of a possible future increase of this restricted area if it is adopted as a permanent exception. Madam President, the Europeans in general and the people who live from the sea, in particular, will not understand why the waters are not communitarised, why we have this restriction – an exception to the principle of free access – why this sector is not being communitarised while the others are. Therefore, from a strictly legal point of view, the establishment of a permanent exception should be ruled out forever. I would like to encourage Members to vote against Recital K and Amendment No 23, which, in my humble opinion, are contrary to Community law and European common sense.

Political group: PPE-DE