GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Mr President, I want to begin by thanking the rapporteur, my Swedish colleague Olle Schmidt, for a very good report. It sheds light upon the important areas of Europe’s future development, which the EIB has a major responsibility for promoting within the framework of its powers. The report also addresses the demands Parliament should make upon the EIB as Europe’s financing institution. I therefore want to confine myself to highlighting a few more of those aspects I consider to be most significant. I am thinking of the candidate countries, the way in which projects are prioritised, small and medium-sized enterprises and supervision of the EIB. Where the candidate countries are concerned, it is extremely important that there should be a significant increase in their share of the total loans of EUR 36 billion. In 2000, they had access to EUR 2.9 billion. In view of the forthcoming enlargement of the European family, there must be an increase if it is to be possible to achieve the objective set at the Lisbon Summit. When it comes to prioritising projects, it is important to safeguard Europe’s competitiveness and therefore prioritise infrastructure in the broad sense of the word. That applies, then, to communication not only in the traditional sense of roads, connecting links and the availability of energy-efficient transport systems for goods and people, but also in the sense of telecommunications, IT, e-commerce, education, increased knowledge and support for new technology. Small and medium-sized enterprises at present account for more than 60 per cent of EU jobs. In an enlarged EU, they will probably account for a significantly higher percentage. Of the 18 million companies in the EU, 99% are small and medium-sized enterprises employing 66% of the workforce. More than 90% of these companies have fewer than ten employees. If, like many new companies, the existing small and medium-sized enterprises are to be given the opportunity to grow and become larger, or simply become large companies, more must be done in terms of supplying information, contributing to projects and providing access to venture capital. The rapporteur has proposed that the Commission be called upon to give the ECB powers to exercise supervision over the EIB. I agree with that. The Bank has no national connection and cannot therefore be compared with a private commercial bank. The ECB is therefore a suitable supervisory body until such time as a possible European finance inspectorate is established. In view of the objective set by the Lisbon Summit, priority must be given to those projects which lead to economic growth, development and increased employment in an enlarged Europe and which attach major importance to small and medium-sized enterprises’ opportunities for growth. Competitiveness and staying power should be the guiding principles here. Greater demands must be made upon the EIB in terms of providing information and evaluating projects and the importance of proper professional supervision and auditing must be emphasised.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, rapporteurs, ladies and gentlemen, Parliament’s proposed amendments on the Drugs Monitoring Centre seek to fundamentally change the remit of the original Centre. As a result, the consensus enjoyed hitherto will be abandoned. The purely information-gathering centre is to be converted into a drugs-combating centre. It cannot be right to bring in the Swedish method through the back door, because this implies working towards the goal of a drug-free society across Europe. But there never will be a drug-free society. Or are cigarettes and alcohol going to be banned too? Despite this restrictive policy being pursued with greater vigour, the number of drug-related deaths has not fallen. Last year in Germany alone, there were over 1 800. A drugs policy of abstinence has led neither to fewer addicts nor to less crime; neither has it led to less drug-related prostitution nor reduced so-called organised crime. European drugs policy therefore needs a new guiding principle. This principle is called damage limitation. Damage limitation is pragmatic and based on reality, whereas abstinence is a moral programme which does not work. Instead of solutions being sought, however, the mandate of the originally neutral information-gathering centre is now to be extended to cover criminal prosecution. At the same time, in the Commission it is intended that, from now on, the issue of prevention should only play a minor role as a small part of health policy. In addition, the Commission is making life difficult for NGOs working on drugs. For example, their prevention projects are being hindered by the Commission’s disbursing the approved funds several months late. Is it the aim of European drugs policy to place more emphasis on criminal prosecution and to cut back on prevention? As far as I am concerned, this is the wrong way forward. That is why I shall be voting against this amendment to integrate criminal prosecution into an extended remit of the Drugs Monitoring Centre. All those colleagues who are interested in having a drugs policy based on people’s needs will, I hope, do likewise.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Madam President, from the Committee on Industry, External Trade and Energy’s point of view it is of course important, now that Sapard is entering its operational phase and money is actually flowing, that that money should be used for developing the rural environment and less for agricultural production capacities. I would like to mention just two key figures: one is the 15% of agricultural production in the candidate countries, and the other is the 50% of cultivated agricultural area that can be further capitalised. So it would be wrong to continue trying to improve production structures. It would be better to create alternative sources of employment in rural areas, either crafts or small-scale industries. All in all, it is important that any possible expansion of production should not add to the already high levels of overproduction in our agriculture but that we should in that event find the right ways of developing craft trade and small-scale industry structures in the candidate countries’ agriculture and rural areas.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, I would just like to let you know that today a consultative meeting was held, and that these motions for resolution will be replaced by a single motion for a joint resolution.

Political group: PSE
Madam President, I should first like to thank the rapporteur very warmly for his painstaking preparation of the report. The shadow rapporteurs no doubt also had a hand in this. Neither are my thanks diminished by the fact that the rapporteur has called 32 Members, of which I am one, a group of narrow-minded individuals. Nevertheless you will of course allow me first of all to repudiate this description here. On behalf of a minority in our group, I should like to express a number of reservations which we have on the proposal. It is proposed, in the extreme case, that an official who has worked in the Commission for ten years and who is 50 years of age be given early retirement with an allowance of 65% of his salary. We do not believe that a lucrative, generous early retirement scheme of this kind can be justified to the European taxpayer. When we have spent the whole day talking about the Irish referendum in the corridors and when we are always talking here about proximity to the people, may I please ask who can actually explain to a pensioner who has paid into a pension scheme for 40 years why a 50-year-old A3-grade official should be given EUR 5 500 to go for walks in the country? No one is able to explain to me why the Commission, which has 18 000 posts, is nevertheless not in a position usefully to deploy 600 officials who are obviously no longer productive. Neither is anyone able to tell me why this should now be an essential component of this Commission reform. I fear, you see, that there will be crafty, shrewd and smart officials who will succeed in benefiting from this golden handshake. In the end the good ones will go, the bad ones will stay, EUR 16 million will be spent and everyone will be disgraced!

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, I too share Mrs Avilés Perea’s conclusion about structural policy. Tens of billions of euros from the Structural Funds are left over, half of which the national governments should have contributed. While there was an undertaking that 15% of the Structural Funds would be destined for women’s projects and equal opportunities, the end result is just 6%. Let us be honest however; we are talking here about 6% of the money spent and not 6% of the amount budgeted. In reality therefore it is just a fraction of the original amount. The Commission always takes refuge behind the fact that it does not know which of the proposed programmes are specifically for women and washes its hands of it. Having regard to the great surplus we must therefore reverse the roles. If the Member States do not submit any programmes in which 15% goes to women’s programmes, we will unfortunately feel compelled to ask the Commission to reject these proposals. This must likewise apply in the wake of enlargement, because the need for Structural Funds in the new Member States can be expected to be so great that the gender dimension there will be subject to extremely harsh treatment.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, my thanks must go first to Mrs Ayuso González, who has invested the greatest effort in this report, even if we are left to vote on just one amendment. Members who sit on the Committee for Agriculture and Rural Development, with Mrs Ayuso, have disregarded party boundaries in trying to point the Commission proposal in a more balanced direction. By balanced we mean that, as well as agricultural alcohol, which makes up only a part of the alcohol market as a whole, synthetic alcohol must also eventually be the subject of a Common Market Organisation, both types of alcohol being in direct competition with each other. Our demand that this be done was rejected. Secondly, there must be exceptions to the existing regulations in Member States which give state support to the production of agricultural alcohol in order to take account of the need to protect the landscape and environment, safeguard the diversity of species and maintain the structures of smallholdings. I am speaking here with specific reference to the German agricultural alcohol monopoly, which has to date effectively performed the functions I have just mentioned. Minimal state aid, which in the European context is in no way relevant to the Internal Market, is used, particularly in southern Germany, to maintain cultural landscapes with fruit meadows that are of ecological value, and which are cultivated and looked after almost exclusively by smallholders. The result of this policy, which has to date been right and proper, can be seen by you yourselves, ladies and gentlemen, on the steepest slopes of the Black Forest, which are now in bloom. This small remuneration for caring for the landscape is almost an idea from the second pillar, which is widely believed to be in need of reinforcement. This concern, though, has not been taken into account either. Parliament is therefore, in my view, doing the right thing in rejecting the Commission proposal before us, which, moreover, utterly disregarded the Council's original mandate for a simple framework regulation. We have kicked the ball back. I am putting my hopes in the unofficial meeting of agriculture ministers at the end of April, and quite specifically in Mrs Künast. The desirable outcome would be for the Council to take up what Parliament has come up with, which I presume will be decided on tomorrow.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteur for her valuable work. The Commission has tackled a very important issue in its communiqué. The question of more effective help for the victims of crime will not be solved merely by improved legislation. We can only make permanent improvements through combined, broad-based dialogue on the part of NGOs and the national authorities. Compared to the authorities, NGOs often, in practice, have more flexible and versatile approaches to problem solving. For example, Internet-based info-banks and service telephones provided through voluntary work could be developed in parallel with the services provided by the authorities. The rigid nature of the courts and especially the high costs involved often prevent victims of crime from discovering their rights. The situation is in untenable conflict with EU principles of the rule of law. People have to enjoy true justice without having to pay for it. The minimum level of legal protection in the Member States of the EU must not be allowed to slip to that which exists in the United States. The EU and its Member States must also ensure that the victims of crime do not have to suffer twice over for the wrong done them. In particular, when it comes to organised crime, many victims forsake the opportunity to go to trial as a result of pressures or for fear of vengeance. EU Member States must develop more effective cooperation among the authorities in post-trial situations, for example, in the areas of plaintiff and witness protection programmes. The added value of Europol in this process must also be investigated carefully.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, Prime Minister, Mr Prodi, on the front page of yesterday’s Financial Times, Horst Köhler, the head of the International Monetary Fund, was lashing out at European political leaders, albeit in a very civilised way. Referring to the economic situation, he said that a reduction in interest rates by the European Central Bank would undoubtedly help the European economy, but it is at least as important for Europe to bring about more ambitious transformations. When, in the same connection, he says the IMF would probably lower its forecast for growth for the euro area for this year to 2.5%, we can see that the financial players have reacted to the totally indecisive outcome of the Stockholm Summit with as much disappointment as my own Group, the Group of the European People’s Party , here in Parliament. We have thus already fallen below the 3% growth target that was set for the mid term as a basis for sustaining and improving employment and social security in Europe. Stockholm was like a mini Nice, without the squabbles. Nobody wanted to speak up for the European common good, and most governments clung to their own interests, such as they imagined them to be. That is what happened, despite what was certainly an enormous effort to achieve results on the part of the country to hold the presidency. At the beginning of the year someone joked that the aims of Lisbon had become the promises of Nikita Khrushchev. It was he who said at the start of the 1960s that the Soviet Union would overtake the United States in ten years in terms of economic power. In the wake of the Stockholm meeting, there is going to be a grain of truth in that joke. We have to remember that the decisions that are now required concerning European patents, the liberalisation of competition among the gas and electricity boards and in the Post Office, making air traffic more flexible, Galileo, and other matters, will not result in any real changes until four to ten years have gone by after the political decision is taken. I would nonetheless like to mention one positive decision that was taken at Stockholm. At last a nugget of something concrete has been found for a policy on the northern dimension. Hopefully, it will encourage not just us in the European Union, but the Russians too, to seek and find suitable targets of cooperation in other areas. As a Finn, I would ask the Prime Minister of our beloved neighbour and the country to hold the presidency the following question. The conclusions of Stockholm state that the sound economic situation that has lasted quite a long time now in the European Union would not have been possible without monetary and economic union: has the Swedish government started preparations to fulfil their Community obligations by joining the third phase of monetary and economic union? Och på svenska: Sverige är alltid välkommen i klubben. [And in Swedish: Sweden is always welcome to join the club.]

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I feel that mention must be made of the good work carried out in preparation for this debate, especially in view of the decisions to be taken later on by the Council and the Commission, as well as Parliament’s future input. We have witnessed the shattering of an illusion: the State, which, motivated by social ideals, should have achieved adequate regulation of basic services, has almost completely failed in its duty. The ideals of fairness, asceticism and non-profit making have fallen, unable to contend with such a weak market: this has led to abuse, an increase in wastage, privileges, bureaucracy and inequality and, at the same time, falling profits. As a result, we are turning back rapidly – it is to be hoped – to competition, to the market, to the prevailing interest of the consumer and also to the profit-making of private enterprise, which is no longer seen as a negative thing. Of course, some last strongholds remain: monopolies, oligopolies, dominating positions – as the previous speaker mentioned – and also the market, which has been controlled to a great extent by cartels on many occasions and continues to be so now. There are examples of this in Italy: we have two great structures, excessive, unjustified strongholds – ENEL and ENI – which have played a highly egotistical and, in some cases, parasitical role. We need to take appropriate action, not least to establish a direct relationship as regards both energy supply and the management thereof, with monitoring of transfers and measures and of the effectiveness of the product sold. I feel that this should be the subject of forthcoming European Union action.

Political group: PPE-DE
Europe, however faltering it may be, must be of some use. At its Strasbourg session, the European Parliament debated with unprecedented intensity in an attempt to achieve this. It adopted a resolution that goes beyond mere good intentions, vigorously condemning indiscriminate suicide attacks and calling for an embargo on arms supplies to both Israel and Palestine, for a United Nations international peacekeeping force to be sent, for the convocation of the EU-Israel Association Council to be convened and the possibility of suspending the EU-Israel Euro-Mediterranean Agreement to be examined. Europe is weak: it has no common foreign policy and no military capacity. However, Europe is growing and starting to understand that it must speak with a single voice and try to influence the various players, beginning with the most powerful, the United States. It is too early to say whether President Bush will choose double-dealing or inconsistency. What we can say, however, is that he has chosen, in the end, to distance himself from Mr Sharon. According to the Wall Street Journal of 5 April, this is because he has bowed to pressure from Europe, the Arab world and most of the media. In Le Monde of 9 April, Patrick Jarreau adds that each of the three protagonists has, in effect, played a decisive role. (Explanation of vote cut short pursuant to Rule 137(1) of the Rules of Procedure)

Political group: PSE
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the House has before it a directive on the recognition of professional qualifications, which we welcome. It is in fact something we urgently need in order to create clarity and legal certainty throughout the European Union. The horizontal approach is a good one. It will produce uniform legislation instead of a diversity of solutions. The work on this text has however cost a lot of time, commitment and sweat. That was because of the variety of professional fields involved and also, to be perfectly honest, the flood of requests made to us by the persons concerned and by their professional organisations. The rapporteur has worked very hard and with the help of committed colleagues on the Committee has achieved a remarkable partial success. But it is not an ideal solution. The plenary is therefore now faced with a tremendous number of amendments. I myself have tabled 50 amendments on behalf of the Group of Social Democrats and Socialists with a view to turning a good intention into a good directive. On the one hand, our amendments are designed to encourage professional mobility and freedom of establishment within the Union. At the same time, with consumer interests in mind we want to help to ensure that high-quality services can be offered everywhere. That requires rules and conditions, which, on the other hand, we want to keep to a necessary minimum. Only if we prevent a bureaucratic jungle from growing in the first place will we create genuine freedom of movement and mobility. With these objectives in mind and wanting to reach a good outcome, I have spent a lot of time listening attentively in the last few months. We then consulted fellow Members here in the House and looked for ways to safeguard the livelihoods of the persons concerned today and to give their professions a bright future in Europe tomorrow. The result of those consultations is embodied in amendments tabled by the Group of the . All you need to do is to agree to them, and we will have a good directive on the recognition of professional qualifications. I would just like to add a few words to Mr Harbour. We have had a lot of discussions with engineers and I have listened to them very carefully and I entirely understand your approach. Perhaps your group will be able to vote in favour of one of the amendments tabled by the Group of the , which proposes that engineers join together on a platform that will find consensus in their profession, and we might be able to include that consensus at a later date in further deliberations about the directive we are discussing today.

Political group: PSE