GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, two questions about this proposal played a decisive role in the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market. The first question was to what extent there actually was a legal basis for this proposal. As rapporteur, I took the view that the undertaking proposed to us here was admittedly a laudable one, but that, unfortunately, it was simply the case that within the European Union and also in relation to the Member States there were relatively clear rules about who had which competences. As rapporteur, my opinion is that issues relating to organising criminal prosecution and procedural criminal law do not fall within the competence of the Treaty on European Union and that these matters should be dealt with by the Member States. Unfortunately, the Committee did not go along with my proposal in this specific case, but, as rapporteur, I should nevertheless like to make this opinion known. The second aspect which played a certain part was the issue of evidence recorded on video. You may remember the debate on the so-called Di Pietro report, which was held here in this House some time ago. At the time, this was already a highly controversial matter. The Committee on Legal Affairs agreed with the rapporteur's view that this recorded evidence was not a suitable instrument in a State under the rule of law and therefore deleted video recordings from the relevant paragraph of the article concerned. I would ask that this also be taken into account here in further discussions. Otherwise the proposal is very much to be welcomed. It would only have been better if it had been dealt with where it belongs, namely in the domain of the national legislator, who could decide all these matters in an exemplary fashion. Not everything needs to be regulated at European level; if it did an all-embracing competence would have been inserted in the Treaty. But this was not done. That is why we should perhaps consider once again whether it is right for us to vote in favour of this initiative.

Political group: PPE-DE
Chairman of the Committee on Budgets. – Mr President, when I came in I was immediately confronted by three surprises. Firstly I saw you sitting there, instead of out here for our budget debate. The one great advantage of that is that because you are there and not here the Socialists now get more speaking time since you would have had speaking time in this debate. The second surprise is to see Commissioner Liikanen, after I praised him yesterday. I was about to welcome Mrs. Schreyer to her first debate and all of a sudden I see him there. The third surprise is the fact that there is no one here from the Council, because this debate is on SABs. I say that with a lot of sadness because the Council deserves to be criticised over SAB1 and SAB3. I have said this at a trialogue meeting, we have said it in our committee and I now wish it to go on public record. The way the Council behaved over SAB 1 and 3 was nothing short of disgraceful. It was a slap in the face to this Parliament. For those who do not understand what I am talking about, I am referring to the timing of their submissions for both the supplementary and amending budgets, which meant that we would not have the chance to debate them in full. We will vote on them this week but it will be to all intents and purposes a formality. I hope it does not happen again. If I thought they were going to do the same thing next year, i.e. submit an SAB at the end of July, I would not hesitate to call a special meeting of the Budgets Committee within the 45-day timetable to make sure that we blocked it so that we could discuss it in full. It did nothing for the trust that we are trying to build up between the two institutions. It just led to antagonism and suspicion. Having said all that, when it comes to SAB4 the speed with which the institutions have worked has been quite commendable. The Council took on board what we were asking and got it through within a week and tomorrow we will be voting on SAB4. This is indeed encouraging. We welcome the cooperation that has gone on in SAB4. We welcome the use of category 1 funds for external expenditure and we welcome that speed. However, two things need to be said about SAB4. One is that the 15 extra posts for OLAF are there, which we accept, but we need to stress that there has to be an SAB5. SAB5 should be imminent because of the Commission’s needs for payments but within the resolution that we will vote on we will insist on an SAB5 and an extra 15 posts for OLAF. This is a political decision which the committee and the Budget Control Committee have to make and the message that therefore needs to be taken to Mrs Schreyer, if not from you, Commissioner, then at least from the Commission services, is that we would want an early meeting with Mrs Schreyer to talk about the contents of an SAB5 to be placed before Parliament as soon as possible and, more importantly, to include the extra staff for OLAF.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, Commissioner, when one considers your statement in technical terms, you are certainly right to say that price-fixing and quantity-fixing are offences against equality of competition in the European Union. Although you do discuss this, the fact remains that livestock farmers were in an extraordinarily difficult situation. The BSE crisis dealt the market a blow the like of which it had never before experienced, and this is something else for which the Commission has to assume its responsibility. Let me remind you that this crisis was marked by repeated attempts by the Commission and, to a varying degree, the Council and some of the Member States, to pour oil on troubled waters, which had a negative effect on the market when disaster actually struck. Let me remind you that it was this House and its investigating committee that had to force the Commission – and to some extent also the Council – to act in order that steps could be taken, not only to make provision for health care and to combat the disease, but also to compensate the farmers. It is understandable that, in such a situation, people will look for ways of defending themselves, even those that are not legal. I do not want to defend this, and they must be punished for it, but then we – by which I mean the Commission – must accept our own responsibilities. Moreover, we must, in addition to the current measures for cleaning up and regulating the market, which you have described, take a good hard look at the agricultural policy. At that time, the situation was that the 90-head upper limit for bull premiums, which had applied in France, did not apply in other countries – Germany being one of them – so that we were paid premiums for every bull that we could produce, while a limit was in force in France. This meant that, in France, a stable market developed, and other countries tried very hard to get their exports onto it. France and the livestock price therefore came under pressure. This, then, is another area in which the agricultural policy must ensure that conditions are the same, in order that we do not end up with the same premium being paid for the twenty-thousandth bull as was paid for the twentieth. The alternative is that this measure must apply in all countries. Let me again remind you that this disparity within the agricultural sector gave rise to major problems, in that it stoked up competition within the agricultural sector. If then, the Commission wants to avail itself of such penalties, it must always take the conditions into account and keep at least the amount of the penalty in line with them.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, I also welcome the reports which have been submitted to us, particularly the excellent report by Mr Blak, who should be congratulated for his equally serious and positive approach to this task. We must certainly accept the idea that the discharge is not a populist denunciation in itself. However, once we appointed the Commission and it therefore enjoyed our trust – until we censured it, that is – the discharge procedure was a joint process of negotiation between players working in good faith and seeking to improve the management of the European Union’s budget. We must be aware that the discharge procedure is a specific task, carried out within a limited timescale – it is a financial task, which has well defined scope, we can grant the discharge or we can postpone it, but we can never reject it outright, because that would require upsetting the sequence of balances. The aim of the discharge, at the end of the day, is not to repeat the act of authorising the budget. The discharge is not an opportunistic step, but a step to punish irregularities and to punish a possible lack of optimal management. The discharge is a framework which we must hold onto if we wish to avoid certain dramatic events being repeated. Personally speaking, I welcome all of the above. I shall make three comments on what has happened here this year. First of all, I acknowledge that there is a serious problem, namely the imbalance between the Commission and Member States’ responsibilities in relation to the discharge. Eighty per cent of the appropriations are still spent by Member States and we grant discharge to the Commission. That is why I believe it is difficult for us to demand in a suitably effective manner the improvement of a positive Statement of Assurance. We are punishing those who are only partially responsible for what is happening to them. Before imposing sanctions on the Commission, I would like the various pockets of Eurosceptics to allow more extensive monitoring in their own countries on the way in which spending is carried out in Member States. My second comment – and I am hurrying through this – concerns relations between OLAF and the European Parliament, which have not yet settled. In this case, the need for transparency must be reconciled with maintaining the confidentiality of certain information and of the individual’s right to protection. That does not always happen. Lastly, we are being very badly affected by an imbalance, on the issue of fraud, between a repressive and largely administrative unit and a judicial unit with powers of jurisdiction that is still in its infancy. That is what constitutes the real scandal in the Fléchard affair. The misunderstandings of the Fléchard case can be explained by the fact that we, the European Union and the Commission, were in a position to levy punishment in administrative terms, without showing consideration for the individual’s right to protection. It is essential that we correct this imbalance by enhancing our powers of jurisdiction.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, it is a very great joy that we have at last a report from the Council of Ministers on human rights. I can remember making this request in December 1979 when the Russian troops were getting together to invade Afghanistan. For some reason, over these past twenty years the Council of Ministers or the ministers meeting in political cooperation have been unwilling to put together a document. Now at least we have a document, although I have to say that it is rather thin soup. The careful balance the Commissioner mentioned needs to be made very carefully, but we need facts and details on how the human rights situation throughout the world is being handled. I trust that this first document will be just one step along the way towards bringing us together and helping us to tackle human rights. It has been an abominable year after all. We have had war, murder, genocide, racism, xenophobia, and I wish we could have had something a little bit more powerful in this document, which was, I have to say, distributed very quickly. It found itself in our pigeon-holes today and it was there for debate with the human rights forum which the President referred to. These things are in need of quick action. At the human rights forum this morning I spoke to one of the President-in-Office’s Finnish colleagues from the Finnish Foreign Ministry, about a particular case mentioned by the European Parliament recently, the case of Alexander Nikitin, a man who is on trial just a few miles away from Helsinki, for high treason. He is facing the death penalty because he reported on the ecological disaster of nuclear submarines in the Murmansk area. I take it this matter is of interest to the Finnish Government, but even though I raised this question with a member of the Finnish Foreign Office, we still do not have any information and the man is on trial today, and tomorrow. I imagine it is familiar to those who are sitting with the Council of Ministers. I hope someone can tell us something about it. Mr President, this is, I suppose, the parliament in Europe that takes human rights the most seriously, and we have great possibilities in dealing with countries that violate human rights. I believe that we have to look much more carefully at this question, to tackle those countries that behave disgracefully; the so-called fingernail-pulling governments need to be taken to task, and the European Parliament must be the institution that takes the lead in making sure that human rights are top of our agenda.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in his introductory speech, Mr Brok said something that is, basically, applicable to all the candidate countries, but also to the Czech Republic. There is still room for catching up in both the economic and administrative spheres. I do not wish to go into them in depth, as these things are basically not problematic, but will be resolved in the near future. Please permit me to concentrate on one point that is of especial significance – the decrees of President Edward Beneš, which we have discussed at very great length in the Committee on Foreign Affairs. On behalf of our group, I have tabled a final amendment, which I would like to put before you now. It reads thus: ‘The European Parliament refers to the report commissioned by it and supports its common conclusions, namely that the presidential decrees do not pose an obstacle to Czech accession to the EU, meaning that all Union citizens will enjoy the same rights on Czech territory after accession, that all judgments handed down in absentia have been quashed, and that Law No. 115 of 8 May 1946 has no justification for its existence from the point of view of modern jurisprudence’ – let me repeat – ‘that Law No. 115 of 8 May 1946 has no justification for its existence from the point of view of modern jurisprudence; regards the statements of principle made in the German/Czech Declaration of 21 January 1997 as a sound basis for reconciliation, which represents the moral foundation for European integration; considers a political gesture by the Czechs to this effect as desirable.’ This text respects the dignity of all those who suffered during the past decades, although it is important again to call to mind the sequence of the historic events. First came rule by the Nazis, then the Czech lands were occupied by Nazi-ruled Germany, then there was the war, and then came the expulsions. A very, very large number of people suffered – Czechs, Sudeten Germans, Hungarians, Roma and others. I believe that this text respects the dignity of all of them, but also respects the dignity of all those who live in the Czech Republic and in the European Union today, of all those who are alive, but had nothing personally to do with these events and who are looking forward, to whom it is the present and the future that matter. Beyond that, this text makes no demands and exerts no pressure on the Czech Republic. Let me conclude by saying that, as my final amendment does justice to all sides, I ask you to vote tomorrow to accept it, along with the report as a whole. (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, it became known this week that two prominent Cambodian opposition papers have been threatened with closure because they are reported to have insulted the king and prime minister. These papers actively support the opposition politician, Mr Sam Rengie. Legal proceedings have been initiated against Sam Rengie himself in order to lift his parliamentary immunity so that he can be brought to trial for treason. In his millennium speech, he dared to raise the fact that it should become clear what the procedure would be for appointing the successor to King Sihanouk in the event of his death. In March of last year, a member of Sam Rengie’s party was killed by a group of men in military uniform in the province of Kandal. In September, two members of the party were arrested because they were reported to have been involved in a rocket attack on the prime minister. This is notably the only party in Cambodia which has no military arm. In October, a member of parliament belonging to the same party was abducted by uniformed men and not released until the ransom was paid. The pattern of intimidation is clear. There is more going on in Cambodia: prisoners are being tortured, the army and police are involved in the trade in women and children, and people are held on remand to an excessive degree. All this is happening on a daily basis. Even more serious is the government’s refusal to bring the leaders of the Khmer Rouge before an international tribunal. It is true, the civil war in Cambodia is over and political tension has eased. The way in which the political opposition is now being treated, however, gives us cause for great concern and, if it carries on like this, it is bound to impact on the Union’s relations with Cambodia.

Political group: ELDR
Madam President, as rapporteur of this report I would like to make two points: firstly, that this very amendment tabled orally by my fellow Member Mr Wynn has been rejected at the vote by the Committee on Fisheries on the day my own report was voted upon. The second is that I do not oppose this amendment being tabled and it should be this House that decides upon its content.

Political group: PSE
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the review of the trans-European network guidelines, which dated back to 1996, was, without a doubt, necessary, both in order to resolve the increasingly complex infrastructure problems and to prepare for enlargement. The work of the Van Miert Group is certainly thorough, but I do not fully endorse its strategic approach, which is biased towards northern Europe to the detriment of the south and the Mediterranean, an area which represents a major opportunity – and also a major European challenge – in terms of the economic, cultural and social cohesion of peoples and countries with which we are called to enter into a new, major dialogue. Therefore, if Italy is a major bridge in the Mediterranean between north and south and between east and west, I fail to understand why both the Adriatic corridor and the Mediterranean corridor, designed to satisfy the requirements of intermodality and interoperability, have been removed from the list of priorities. Only the bridge over the Straits of Messina, which is a case apart, remains. We therefore call upon the Commission to ensure that they are reinstated once again among the priority projects for 2020, and for endeavours to improve relations between the public and private sectors and to implement controls.

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, the report acknowledges certain obvious truths. That is a fact. However, at the same time it makes findings which have no bearing on reality. It sees progress where there is none, it extols the famous ‘national programme’ and a number of individual reforms which, basically, do no more than pull the wool over the eyes of the world in order to conceal the continuing and, from certain sides, the worsening situation for the working classes. We warned that the decision taken in Helsinki would help not to democratise but to embolden the regime. The army is still the determining factor in political life. The grass-roots movement is being dealt with in the crudest fashion. Arrests, over 10 000 political prisoners, torture chambers, murders, inhumane conditions in prisons, which are extolled in the report, are on the agenda. The hunger strikers have been fighting to the death now for 370 days and dozens have already died. The death penalty has only been abolished for criminal prisoners, not for people fighting for democracy and freedom. The report calls these fighters extremists and the Turkish state calls them terrorists, while the Kurds are deprived of fundamental rights, the occupying forces remain in Cyprus after their barbaric invasion 27 years ago and the report says not a word. However, the key point of the report is Paragraph 29, which extols Turkey's contribution to the fight against terrorism, clearly dismissing the Kurdish fighters, and its peace-brokering efforts in the Balkans, obviously meaning its open support for the KLA criminals, and it incites it to facilitate the application of the ΝΑΤΟ treaty. Allow me to finish by saying that my brotherly love towards and solidarity with the Turkish people prevent me from voting in favour of this report. (The President cut the speaker off)

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, it is a pity that our opinion is only being submitted after Barcelona, thus limiting the scope of tomorrow’s vote. At Barcelona, the Council set itself the objective of increasing the retirement age by five years by 2010, without any conclusion from Parliament or the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs on the subject, and, most importantly, without taking account of the expectations of the citizens and the social partners, for whom this idea is completely unacceptable. The European Union, which is not competent to decide on matters of social protection but which, in fact, is exercising this competence in the name of establishing the single market in funded pensions, should play a greater part in extending the public debate on the future of pensions. How should this be done? First of all, by noting, as the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs has done, that this is essentially a social challenge with financial aspects, and not the other way round. Second, this challenge will only be taken up if we accept that the determining factor will be the employment rate rather than population ageing. We already knew that pension funds do not affect the key choices that have to be made by society: what is this question? What is this choice? What proportion of overall wealth do we want to allocate to pensioners? In the past, we upheld the contributory pension system as a collective system of inter-generational support that creates a social link. Now, we should be completely immune to capitalisation, in view of the Enron affair and the situation of British insurers who are begging their clients to use contributory pension services. For many companies, employment remains a factor in cost adjustment. The oldest workers, who are also the best paid, often pay the price of company exclusion policies. Under these conditions, we cannot pretend to be astonished that those under threat of unemployment and poverty choose early retirement. An entirely different goal would be necessary in order to achieve modernisation that takes in to account developments in work and life stages and to create a genuine right to gradual retirement. IN THE CHAIR: MR PACHECO PEREIRAVice-President

Political group: Verts-ALE