GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Mr President, first of all, I want to make it clear that I am not speaking on behalf of the whole of my group, but only on my own behalf. I fear too that I am going to disappoint the rapporteur, for there is no unanimous backing for this report. It is about how the system of sales promotion measures is to be changed. I think it is wrong in principle to have such measures in the European Union. It cannot reasonably be the taxpayers’ and the European Union’s business to finance advertising campaigns to encourage people, for example, to buy tulips or eat more apples. This is properly a matter for producers, retailers and trade associations, not the European Union. I think we ought now to have taken the opportunity to phase out the system rather than change and consolidate it. It is also important to point out that there are serious faults in this aspect of agricultural policy. At present, so much support is being given to production that an enormous volume of certain articles is being produced, for which there is no market. There are no purchasers. If agricultural products are not quite simply to be destroyed, this leads to export subsidies having to be introduced, which destroy the agricultural market in other countries, or advertising campaigns financed by taxpayers. The system of sales promotion measures is part of what is wrong with the system for the EU’s agricultural policy. I believe it is the fault in the system that ought to be tackled. No special payments must be made for products for which there is no demand, and the latter must not be advertised. There are too many elements of the planned economy in this system. I shall therefore be voting against this report.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, the fight against the death penalty in the world is, first and foremost, civilisation’s fight for the right of humanitarian intervention which is making headway in terms of global awareness. This Parliament has a long tradition on this issue, and I would like to pay tribute here to the work of Adelaide Aglietta, who was the first rapporteur in this Parliament to deal with the issue of the death penalty in the world. The Council is doing a good job and we hope that the Commission will do likewise. However, we must now make sure that the resolution which will be put to the House will not end up as just a piece of paper, but will constitute another stage in the continuation of this fight. The Council must not stop. It needs to establish further deadlines and mechanisms to monitor the implementation of the resolution.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Madam President, unfortunately the fears which I expressed the very day after the terrorist attack in the USA have come true and the death of the thousands of innocent American victims is being used as an excuse for a barbaric attack on Afghanistan, giving rise to new hordes of innocent victims and causing tremendous damage. Today, 15 days after the attacks started, it is clear – witness the announcements by the US administration – that the aim is not to stamp out terrorism, it is – or at least one of the aims is – to control central Asia and its huge natural resources and highly important geo-strategic position. My fear, especially after Mrs Gandhi, that this attack will be used to further strengthen capitalist mechanisms and curtail our workers' and our nations' democratic freedoms and rights, has also come true. The EU, led by the three, has aligned with the USA in what is a disastrous policy for our nations and our planet. I believe that the European Parliament, as a democratically elected house, has a duty, if it wants to serve the peaceful, democratic visions and wishes of our people, to oppose these developments, to push for the EU to disassociate itself from them, to stop the war and to revert to resolving differences by peaceful means. However, in the final analysis, it is up to the people. ***

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, we have not debated the issue of this special committee. As far as I am aware it has never been raised in Parliament. We are putting it to a vote without any discussion. I would be interested to know how it was established, where its foundations came from, what its costs are going to be, how it relates to the established committees – industry, public health and the others – and whether it is proper to vote on this without any public debate.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, Commissioner, the matter before us today is to determine whether or not tomorrow’s vote will result in the lifting of the moratorium on authorisations for the cultivation and placing on the market of GMOs. The answer is, quite clearly, no, it will not. We must pursue the moratorium since the revised 90/220 Directive does not meet all the requirements that we stipulated at the beginning. While there has been some improvement, amongst other things, in the biological monitoring of future affected areas, inasmuch as it is possible to actually identify such areas, this will, however, be at the discretion of the relevant authorities. The final compromise does not respond to consumer concerns, since consumers would like to see guarantees of food safety and to see proper assessment of the risks of releasing GMOs into the environment being carried out. The BSE crisis could have been avoided, had more courageous decisions been taken as soon as the first warning signs emerged. We must not make the same mistake twice. I hope that the Commission will shortly outline proposals to guarantee the complete traceability of GMOs and to establish a reliable labelling system for all GMO-derived products. Only then will we be able to authorise the release of GMOs into the environment.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, Mr Queiró and Mr Friedrich have given Hungary ten out of ten for accession efforts on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs. Hungary was the first country to raise the Iron Curtain and to start intensive preparations for full membership. Today, thank God, fear of enlargement is clearly beginning to recede. We could see in Burgenland, which borders on Hungary, that the Euro-sceptics did not stand a chance and were losing more and more ground. The same applies in Austria and Germany with regard to the Czech Republic and Poland, although here the problems are patently worse. But I think that this is a positive development and that this development is thanks to Hungary's policy of settling its minority problems, which it has done in an exemplary fashion, and of taking a clearly pro-European stance across the political divide. I should like, first and foremost, to call on the Czech Republic, for which I also have a soft spot and which I hope, like Hungary, will be one of the first wave of candidate countries, to follow Hungary's example and resolve its minority problems, discard its historical baggage and, at the same time, find a consensus between the political parties on the question of political integration. I think this is paramount. I am positive that the so-called candidate countries – not an expression I particularly like – will not become the ballast of European unification; it is precisely Hungary, the Czech Republic and others which can become the driving force behind European integration. The same applies to Slovakia, although it has internal political problems. But if it resolves them, I think that Slovakia, together with Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland, will become the countries to drive European integration forward. We should therefore take a less anxious view of this project, which we should not call enlargement to the east but, to quote Pope John Paul II, the 'Europeanisation of Europe'. Because a European Union without Hungary or the Czech Republic is no European Union!

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, Commissioner, I wish to concentrate on the ARGO programme and begin by thanking Mr Oostlander for a good report. At the committee reading, a number of proposals went through which further strengthened the programme’s common dimension. Mr President, it cannot be emphasised enough how important it is for the EU to acquire a common approach when it comes to asylum issues. It is important, then, for the administrative routines to operate similarly everywhere. Those who try to come to Europe must be treated respectfully, humanely and equally. They must not be shunted like mere objects between the various Member States, as unfortunately often happens at present. Events in recent years indicate very clearly the need for common programmes and common funding within the sphere of asylum. Just as other MEPs have stated, there is a need for education, the exchange of experiences and the development of common practice. The candidate countries, which will form the EU’s new external borders, are also important in this context, of course. Unfortunately – and this, I think, is something that deserves to be pointed out – the EU’s refugee and asylum policy has in recent years been characterised mostly by directly opposite tendencies. The Member States have often acted short-sightedly and without proper consideration, with catastrophic human suffering as a consequence. Sometimes, the thought arises as to whether certain Member States have competed in setting aside humanitarianism and the rule of law. As Mr Oostlander pointed out, the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party has tabled an amendment concerning a further definition of what precisely constitutes a refugee under the Geneva Convention. The latter certainly constitutes the mainstay of asylum and refugee policy, but it makes sense to adapt one’s practice to changes in the real state of affairs. As Mr Evans pointed out, experience in recent years has shown that this is so. Refugees must be able to seek protection both from the State and from persecution in their own countries, and a further definition is therefore needed. We therefore propose such a definition, and we hope that this House can also accept our proposal.

Political group: ELDR
Madam President, I am delighted with Mr Cox’s proposal and I think that it is also a viable compromise. I regret that the Group of the European People’s Party have quoted Rule 115, because the last version of the text, which was the French one, was actually issued at 1.02 a.m. It is now 23.5 hours later. Maybe they need this last half hour to prepare for their debate, but it does seem that they seized on this as a rather lame excuse. However, I am in favour of the compromise of starting this debate at 3.00 p.m., and I also hope that we will be able to finish it this afternoon. I would like to point out once more that it is indeed extremely important to finish it during this sitting because, otherwise, we will lose all authority which we can still exercise in the Social Affairs Council, to be held on 5 and 6 June and, in that way, the report’s significance will be seriously undermined.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner Verheugen's statements on the Beneš decrees, which I expressly welcome, mark a noteworthy change in the Commission's attitude. Many initiatives, Commissioner, saw these issues as bilateral in nature and not to be put in the context of negotiations on European enlargement; I expressly welcome the way you have now abandoned this manifestly untenable position and I praise you for it. You obviously did this influenced by the public debate sparked by Mr Zeman, who, this House should note, has presumed to advise the Israelis to do with the Palestinians what the Czechs did with the Hungarians and Sudeten Germans after the last World War – which I consider to be the most monstrous thing he has said. Such an attitude of mind has, though, no place in the European Union, and so, Mr Verheugen, I expressly welcome the way you have put discussion of these decrees into the context of the European legal order, recognising the political and moral issues involved, which go against the EU's legal order, and which are indeed obsolete, being incapable of having any future legal effect within the EU, and that what matters now is to make it our concern, in a spirit of good neighbourliness, that they do not constitute obstacles on the road to enlargement. Questions therefore arise and demand to be answered. If the decrees have indeed lapsed, as the Czech government maintains, why were they not unambiguously annulled? If, though, they have not lapsed, and can still be employed in practice, indications of which are unfortunately numerous, how, then, can they be reconciled with the European legal order? And the pre-eminent fundamental question is that of what line the Czech government takes, not only on excesses but with the expulsion of entire ethnic groups as such, that is, on what we have unfortunately learned to call ethnic cleansing. That the Foreign Affairs Committee intends henceforth to set in motion investigations by experts is therefore to be welcomed to an extraordinary degree, as these issues affect not only the EU's conception of itself as a community based on law, but also the foundations on which the EU enterprise rests. These issues must be clarified before we can actually complete enlargement successfully. (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, Commissioner, the most important issue of the negotiations of the Millennium Round were the grass-root reactions. It was the first time that protests on that scale have been held in the United States since the war in Vietnam. The awakening of people’s movements all over the world proves the objection to the principles of the World Trade Organisation. Indeed, trade liberalisation, the abolishment of subsidies, free investments, the commercialisation of services, even education, health and cultural services, serve the major interests of the monopolies to increase their profit margins. However, it is not at all appealing for the workers or the people. Even the much-publicised complete abolition of tariffs on products from poorer countries will precipitate the pillaging of wealth of those countries, while on the other hand it will deluge the market with cheap products replacing corresponding products from countries such as mine. The World Trade Organisation was not formed to protect the interests of workers and the people, the proof of which lies in the fact that the main decision-makers are the few wealthy countries and in the widening of inequalities between rich and poor countries, and also within those countries. The Commissioner made no mention of the grass-root reactions. Obviously, he wants to downplay them, and tell us that whatever the people do, the American, European, Japanese monopolies and the rest will impose their will and overcome these reactions together. We are certain that the grass-root reactions all over the world were probably the sole cause of the failure of these talks not just because the demonstrators thwarted the formal opening ceremony but because they created a climate which cannot be ignored even by those who think they control the world. And we have only just begun.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Madam President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, I shall confine my contribution to Afghanistan. It is extremely difficult to question the military course of affairs because the situation is so extremely fluid. I should nevertheless like to ask one question in this connection, namely with regard to an element which, in my view, will remain high-priority for the foreseeable future. It concerns the idea of sending a UN peace-keeping force to Kabul to ensure that the situation there does not get out of hand. Has the Council discussed in any way or at any time the fact that European countries, or the Union perhaps as a whole, would make a contribution to the UN peace-keeping force, or does the Council hold the view that it would be best if this UN peace-keeping force were to comprise representatives from Muslim countries only? In other words, is future involvement by the EU provided for in this UN peace-keeping force? I should now like to turn to the humanitarian aspect. It is clear that there are still many needs and it is also evident that the invasion of large parts of Afghanistan by the Northern Alliance enhances the prospect of granting this aid. Does the Commission know whether at the moment, or over the next few days, all aid which the Commission wishes to grant is being delivered promptly and adequately, or are there still obstacles? If so, what are they? Finally, I should like to touch upon the political and diplomatic dimension. My group fears that the politicians will be trampled underfoot by the military. The fact of the matter is that the military conquests have preceded the political ones. My group is concerned that finding a political solution could be frustrated or perhaps even made impossible if the Northern Alliance continues to advance southwards. I know that the European Union and the EU Member States, alongside UN representative Mr Brahimi, are involved in finding what you refer to as a stable government. What is the EU’s specific involvement at the moment, and in the next few days, in finding this political solution which, in my view, takes priority over anything else? This might well be higher on the list of priorities than a military solution. If no political solution is found, any military invasion could well be in vain. I should like to finish off with a comment on London. I am not so much concerned about the fact that countries that make military contributions, and that want to discuss this, meet in London. What does worry me is the fact that the agenda of London also featured the Middle East policy. I would ask you, among others, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, whether Middle East policy is drafted in London or in Brussels.

Political group: Verts-ALE
I thank you, Commissioner, for your answer and I should like to ask whether the Commission is aware that 14 months into his 13-year prison sentence Mr Xu is suffering from hepatitis and there are serious doubts as to the effectiveness of the medical treatment he is receiving. I would seek an assurance that the Commission will enquire into this and ask the Chinese authorities whether they are providing the appropriate medical treatment. Bearing in mind, Commissioner, what you said about your willingness to raise individual cases, could I also ask you to make enquiries about the fate of Rebiya Kadeer. She was arrested on 11 August 1999 in Urumqui, the capital of the XUAR, while on her way to meet representatives of the US Congressional Research Service. She was charged with providing secret information to foreigners and is believed to have been sentenced to eight years' imprisonment at a secret trial. I will gladly provide more detailed information on that, Mr Commissioner. It makes me even more angry that European Union Member States, faced with these cases and the 23 in general you referred to, show such spinelessness in refusing to support the US initiative in Geneva at the UN Commission on Human Rights attacking China's human rights record.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the promotion of small and medium-sized enterprises – SMEs for short – has hitherto always been one of the European Union's major concerns. I am, then, all the more astonished to note that, in the preliminary draft budget, the Commission is reducing the amounts for this over against last year and the years preceding it. What it boils down to is that this programme has an implementation rate of between 97% and 100%. The development of small and medium-sized enterprises is the cornerstone of the internal market, it being beyond dispute that this area accounts for over 90% of the workforce. It is an area that we must promote and develop, especially as regards new technologies. I would like to ask the Commission to support our motion that these amounts be augmented. I would like to use my remaining speaking time to call on the Council to at last come up with a ruling on the seats of the new agencies, so that this House does not end up getting through the legislative procedures in no time, with the Council then needing years to come to any decision on the seat issue. (Applause)

Political group: PSE
Mr Mastorakis’ report deserves our wholehearted support. The European Maritime Safety Agency must have the competences and the means to prevent and combat pollution caused by ships and other vessels. We must ensure that the Agency is located in Portugal and – in the interests of decentralisation and of combating the inherent imbalance in Portugal’s Lisbon-centric development – we must make it possible for the Agency, or one of its branches, to be located in Sagres, on the Algarve, in Southern Europe. - Stockmann report (A5-0016/2004)

Political group: PSE
Mr President, I would like to thank the two rapporteurs for their excellent reports which draw attention to the problems and the solutions. The environment, social and cultural issues, development and governance are, of course, all intrinsically connected. This is shown by the fact that despite some advances since the Rio Summit, man-made climate change is still unabated. Vital resources are being further depleted and the gap between rich and poor becomes ever wider. So many opportunities were presented in Rio, and as Mr Papayannakis' report states, so many expectations were raised with the Kyoto Protocol, the Cartagena Protocol and so on, but they failed to progress. It is not really any surprise that so many NGOs are already predicting negative outcomes for Johannesburg. But people expect us in the European Union to take a lead on these issues and we cannot shirk that responsibility. In another ten years, people will be asking what action we took in 2002 to address and to reverse the lack of progress in the past ten years. Other colleagues have made very many important points relating to the summit. I would like to draw attention to one other aspect and that is the need to look at diversity in its widest sense, including the cultural aspects. The future needs sustainable communities in the true definition of that concept. Today, about half of the 6 000 or so languages spoken in different parts of the world are under threat: that means that 3 000 languages are either seriously endangered or are dying. The need to protect and enhance the diversity of cultures in the world becomes even more urgent in the face of increasing globalisation. We need to ensure that an artificial polarisation between the needs of the environment and the needs of people is not allowed to develop any further. So I welcome the positive and the constructive comments of the rapporteurs, as Mr Lannoye said, 'this is a major challenge and we need to take a radical new approach'.

Political group: Verts-ALE