GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Madam President, like many other Members I am very concerned about this lack of planning a such a late stage, when we have known for some time that tariffs were changing in 2005. I am not convinced that we are hearing answers that are going to deal with the total exploitation that exists in a lot of the textile industries in many countries throughout the world – whether through child labour, poverty wages or whatever. As has been mentioned, we are already seeing a shift in production from the European Union to other countries. I was in Athens last week looking at the case of Schiesser-Palco, an underwear producer – they promised me a sample for the Commissioner but the post has not managed to deliver on that! That company is relocating 500 jobs to Bulgaria. The workers there resent being seen as a cheap option when they believe that they are already working for poverty wages, but in a high-unemployment situation it is very difficult to resist taking any job that is available. We are seeing the same sort of relocation through India, Sri Lanka, Latin America and China – where, we are told, the future of textile manufacturing lies. I am not convinced that we have had an answer yet as to what is possible under current WTO rules, which means that it can be very difficult to resist imports on the current process and production rules, and difficult to differentiate on labour standards and so on. There seems to be a push coming from certain quarters that corporate social responsibility and consumer power should be the key tools in ensuring standards throughout the consumer chain. It will be left to campaigners like Clean Clothes and No Sweat to make sure that labour and environmental standards are maintained. I am interested to know exactly what we think is possible under the current WTO rules, and whether the Commission agrees with the Vice-President of Levi-Strauss, who was arguing that ILO standards should be part of all bilateral and multilateral trade agreements.

Political group: Verts-ALE
The parliamentary group I belong to is leaning towards voting against Mr Prodi. I share a lot of the concerns and reservations expressed by the majority of my parliamentary group regarding the Commission’s programme and composition. However, I do not agree with voting against him. I know Romano Prodi well and greatly appreciate his leadership qualities and his democratic aims. President Prodi was head of the Italian Government at a decisive moment for Italy’s entry into Europe. At that time, I firmly supported the work of his government and I tirelessly fought to prevent his centre-left government from entering a crisis – just about a year ago – through an initiative of the political group led by Mr Bertinotti. I did not lose confidence in him them, and I do not intend to deny him my confidence today. Romano Prodi was nominated President of the Commission by the current government of the Italian Republic, which my party is an active member of. And I confess that his strength of character can guarantee strong leadership of the Commission, overcoming the limitations and inadequacies we have noted in the programme and the composition of the Commission. And so, in contrast with the positions taken by the majority of our parliamentary group , we Italian Communist Members make a reasoned and vigilant abstention.

Political group: GUE-NGL
We agree with the position that wishes to postpone the creation of the European electronic toll system until 1 January 2007 and recommends that the goal of the directive should be to ensure the general interoperability of the various systems. By 31 December 2009 the Commission should submit a study on the dissemination and interoperability of the various technologies and a cost-benefit analysis. On this basis it will then be able to submit a proposal for a migration strategy. The Commission’s aim in presenting this proposal is to create a European electronic toll service for the whole toll road system, since the existence of different, mutually incompatible, national toll systems creates problems for international traffic, especially heavy goods vehicles, which need to have several different contracts and different boxes, and for the proper operation of the internal market. In short, the objective is one contract per customer, one box per vehicle. The Commission, however, is trying to impose a system which has yet to be tried out. Other aspects, too, are still to be resolved, such as the process for transferring tolls collected in one Member State to a contract made in another Member State. It is trying to force operators to guarantee interoperability by 2005 on the basis of three technologies, and thereafter to adopt a single system. This is a position that we reject.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, I would like to thank Mrs Oomen for the huge amount of work she has done. She, herself, has also indicated that this is an important issue for which little is being done, for which politicians hardly have any consideration, and, as we can see, it is extremely difficult to lend this matter some clarity. Despite this, I have some observations in this respect, which is also apparent from my amendments. I, myself, live in a border region and every day, I see people from my area who commute to another country. Whether this is Germany or Belgium, they cross the border at any rate. What I have noticed is that the regulation on social security, No 1408, also applies to workers who decide to move to the country of employment and actually live there. I welcome clarity in this matter, and I have tabled two amendments to this effect. I agree with this position and I have also told Mrs Oomen. But I do believe that we should include a caveat so that, if it transpires that after eighteen months or two years, an assessment should be made and if, based on this assessment, it appears that frontier workers are suffering disproportionate drawbacks, a different choice can be made, and I would like to see this caveat included in the report. Mrs Oomen takes the country of employment as the guiding principle. I believe that it is not so evident that the country of employment principle always works in the interests of, and benefits, the frontier workers. I am of the opinion that we work to live and not the other way round. For that reason, I believe that all the money and certainties we obtain on the shop floor should be brought to bear in our living environment. That is why I am in favour of considering the possibility of using the country of residence principle. I have included the above in an amendment. I would therefore ask my fellow MEPs to vote in favour of this amendment. I have also tabled two amendments to Articles 6 and 7 to have these deleted, because I believe that the Commission is not competent to take measures to intervene in bilateral agreements.

Political group: ELDR
Madam President, Mrs Reding, allow me to congratulate you on your initiative on the issue of doping. We can only hope that you will make some proper headway with the people who always make out that they would fight doping. I think we are on the right track and I wish you luck. However, I would like to come back to what my colleague, Mr Cohn-Bendit said. We cannot legislate because, as you said, there is no legal basis in the Treaty. As you know, in my 1996 report, I called, on behalf of Parliament, for sport to be included in the Treaty at long last. We wanted it to have its own line in Article 128 – under culture. But we failed. There is something like a declaration attached to the Treaty, but it is not enough to prevent our having to ask ourselves every year when we debate the budget, should we or should we not fund sport? I think that if what you have said, if what you submit to the Council in Helsinki is to make sense, then we must conclude that the European Parliament is not confined to making statements on Bosman judgements or competition issues in sport, but can give sport a true value by paying more than mere lip service to it in the Treaty. Only then will we be able to do what my colleague Mr Cohn-Bendit said, only then will we be able to use the budget to give constructive support to cross-border sporting events. I urge you from the bottom of my heart to persuade your colleagues at the Commission to take a real step forward with the Council in Helsinki by including a sub-section on sport in the Treaty. Only then will we be able to make any real progress on this issue! (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE
Commissioner, I would like to congratulate you on this initiative because transparency and benchmarking are the most important basic prerequisites for functioning competition. It would be worth considering – and this is the point of my question – whether you could envisage leaving it to a standardisation committee to make a voluntary decision on this issue in the first round, and only resorting to technical legislation, i.e. to the adoption of a regulation or a directive, when this is seen not to be working? Perhaps it would make sense to implement it on a voluntary basis to begin with, taking particular account, of course, of the companies, i.e. those on the receiving end, the rating agencies and the tax offices. Furthermore, I believe the offshoot of this is that a measure of this kind should not, of course, be applied as strictly to small and medium-sized enterprises, which are not listed on the stock market.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, this report has a somewhat turbulent history. Initially it was a report which I in the committee saw as a diplomatic declaration of war on the People’s Republic of China, which was naturally not the intention. Thanks to the combined efforts of the committee, the report has been radically amended and is now more to do with what its title indicated it was intended to be about. It is largely acceptable to us in the Green Group but some problems still remain. The first is point 21, which attacks the Chinese demographic policy which naturally has many different aspects. The fact is, however, that it is in the process of being changed quite radically. As recently as just a month or so ago the New York Times – of all papers – contained reportage which described in very positive terms how the one-child policy was being changed quite thoroughly and radically. In this situation I think it is quite unnecessary of us in the European Parliament to attack the Chinese population policy as one-sidedly as in point 21. The second problem is about visas for Taiwan’s top leaders. I have to admit that I think this is quite difficult. In Swedish debates I have criticised visas not being given to these top Taiwanese leaders. On the other hand I have understood that the People’s Republic of China sees this as us attempting to change practice and more or less indirectly begin to recognise the State of Taiwan, which is no-one’s intention. This is clearly problematic. For my part I will abstain from the vote on this point.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Madam President, firstly I praise the European Council for accepting the draft Charter as definitive. From what we know of the performance of the Prime Ministers and Presidents at Biarritz on the trickiest questions of Treaty reform, the Charter will probably become the greatest trophy at Nice. So why is the French Presidency trying to suppress the question of the installation of the Charter within the Treaty? President Chirac, with his usual capacity for surprise, said in his press statement that the Charter’s legal status would be a question for the Swedish Presidency. What does that mean? What on earth is Sweden supposed to achieve that France cannot? Surely it is for the European Council at Nice to consider whether the Charter should be inserted inside the Treaty. That is what the IGC is for. I would urge the French Presidency quickly to reassess its position on that central point.

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, yet again we are discussing the issue of terrorism in the context of the appalling atrocity in Bali in which hundreds of people lost their lives. Like others, I want to express my deepest sympathies to the relatives and friends of those who have died. I agree with most, though not all, of what has been said here. It is clear what needs to be done: respect for the rule of law, protection of rights, scrutiny of the action our states take to deal with terrorism, democratic dialogue to try and deal with underlying issues and so forth. All are very necessary. What more can one add? It seems to me that one thing we can add is the notion that we are not going to destroy terrorism by simply killing or imprisoning those who carry out these acts. Of course, it is not the poor in general who carry out the acts but those responsible for the acts are often poor. We have to try and deal with the hopelessness that motivates them. We have to try and overcome the idea that there is one true faith, one true version of history and one version of truth expounded by the chosen ones. I am not speaking here just of religion but also of politics. We must try to engage with people, so that we can open their minds and our own to what underlies their hopelessness. It is not enough to contain terrorism, although I have no doubt of the power of our states to do so. Not all the European Union Member States have experienced terrorism since the end of the Second World War, but a significant number have. That is quite extraordinary, considering that we are one of the most stable and peaceful regions in the world. We need to engage in education in the real sense, to open minds to the fact that the world is extremely diverse and could be a very tolerant and good place to live if we could only live with each other.

Political group: PSE
This agreement, like so many others of its kind, illustrates the way that the European Union wraps up its policy of pillaging the resources of developing-world countries in hypocritical observations. It is clear that this is the case when a tiny, poor, remote country in the Pacific Ocean, entirely dependent on tuna-fishing, is asked to agree not to the fact that it will be exploited but to the conditions of its exploitation. Not content to help the ship owners – and, next in line, the major agrifoods companies which market tuna – to obtain fishing rights, the European Union has found the means to subsidise two thirds of the meagre royalties which these companies have to pay to the Republic of Kiribati. What this report reveals of the conditions of what must be called pure and simple pillaging can only provoke disgust. If we abstain, instead of voting against this report, it is only because we would not want to risk blocking the few clauses which it contains which could provide some resources for the Kiribati population. - Sørensen report (A5-0072/2003)

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, here is another chance for Turkey to exploit its strategic position and use its proverbial military capabilities: let us hope that, this time, its attachment to the West will be more effectively translated into vital internal reforms. Mr Lamassoure has painted an objective, clear picture of the country but, despite some positive elements, he does not hide his concern that Turkey might regress to a state which is worse than the current situation. It is positive that the Turkish government has presented a programme of conditions for joining Europe and it is positive that it is working on the Constitution, but it is negative that neither the ‘road map’ nor the timetable for the reforms has been clearly defined. The European Union is not asking every country to follow the same procedure, but there are certain values, certain individual and democratic rights which must be respected – and Europe does know how to be patient – in Turkey and in its prisons too. One final point: the question of the Armenian genocide is, strangely, becoming increasingly important with the passing of time. Today, humanity no longer tolerates lies or inaccurate accounts when it comes to the horrific events of history. It is not necessary to say, for example, how much the descriptions of the blood baths of the two world wars by former enemy historians helped to soothe feelings and cool emotions, and this example should be followed as soon as possible by Turks and Armenians, with a view to starting to normalise relations between the two neighbouring countries. Lastly, I am sure that Armenia would be quite willing to erect a monument in front of one of the European institutions commemorating its sacrifice and entrusting it to history. This would also make it possible for us, too, to produce documents on Turkey without worrying about how to address the question of Armenia. It is necessary to remember the past in order to do better in the future.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, I do not have enough time to counter the attacks on critics made by Mr Kuhne and Mrs Avilés Perea. Four years after Paul van Buitenen's revelations, which contributed to the resignation of the previous Commission, the use of an unsuitable automated accounting system is still undermining the reliability of the accounts. That system is made up of a variety of non-integrated parts, and is unable to reveal errors or anything illegal. Officials who gain knowledge of these shortcomings and wish to contribute to a quick solution are not rewarded, but instead punished. For years now, solutions have been put off until a later date, and only after 2005 will we know whether anything has really been solved. Member States are not under pressure from the many infringement procedures for non-compliance with rules, because the former have not given rise to many investigations or penalties. A similar state of affairs in a Member State or part of a Member State would probably result in the annual accounts there not being approved. Why should we then approve such a document concerning the Commission before the problems have been solved? In my view, granting the Commission discharge at this stage sends out the wrong signal.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Madam President, we cannot allow my report to be referred back to committee because a decision must be taken by 31 December. If nothing has been decided by 1 January, there will be a legal void which will cause chaos on the market. A decision must therefore be made. It will probably be taken without us but it is right and politically correct, if I may use this term, for Parliament to make a decision. The Council will likely do whatever it wants but at least we can vote.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, I agree with much of the President-in-Office's statement, in particular about the need for a strategically positive relationship with the USA. However, I am also particularly grateful to Mr Lagendijk for identifying the key events so clearly. I do not think that it makes any sense to dub the problems in current relations with the USA as ‘cowardice in the face of amity’. I believe that it is urgently necessary, indeed I would even say that it is of the utmost urgency, to discuss transatlantic relations in a very open way. And that is the point, Mr President-in-Office, where there is a difference that has not been mentioned and that you did not touch upon. It seems that at present we do not have the courage to admit to ourselves that the role of the European Union in international relations is undoubtedly at risk because of this. We do not have the courage to admit that there are differences between us and the USA. We do not have the courage to admit that you can hardly say there is a common foreign and security policy at present. There are also significant developments beyond steel which will have serious consequences. I am certainly pleased that the business community in Europe has at least aired its differences of opinion and not just expressed unreserved support. There is the issue of withdrawal from the ABM Treaty and the issue of unilateral declarations involving clear legal violations. The problem in such cases is that those who have their headphones on hear, whilst those who stand around chatting do not get the message at all. So the United States has made a unilateral decision concerning the non-proliferation treaty. They are blocking controls on biological weapons. The United States is dismantling the control organisation for the chemical weapons treaty. There has been an announcement about withdrawal from the space weapons treaty. There have been violations of international humanitarian law, the withdrawal from Kyoto, and the non-ratification of the international protocol on the International Criminal Court. I do not want to say that this all adds up to a negative picture, but it is nevertheless clear that there are very big differences between the US and Europe here, and I can only agreed with what Mr Lagendijk has said about nuclear weapons. I am certain that that the plans of the US and probably Russia as well contain even more macabre scenarios, but the point of their becoming public knowledge is evidently to humiliate Russia, which has recently been so zealous in its support for the USA. I wish to call on the European Union to counter this trend towards genuine multilateralism and the strengthening of the UN, and it should take advantage of its position as a civilian power, a power that practises preventive conflict resolution, and it should actually develop a common foreign policy. The most important condition for this is that, regardless of everything we have in common, we should ensure that these differences are not allowed to be hidden in a kind of European policy blind spot. IN THE CHAIR: MR DAVID MARTINVice-President

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, I am in favour of this referral, but I should like to point out that this has become a precedent, because we debated in this House a report that had not been brought up to date and was then referred back to committee for the vote. I think this is a very odd procedure to say the least, and one that I hope will not be repeated. (Parliament decided to refer the matter back to the committee responsible) *** Report (A5-0294/2003) by Mr Bodrato, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on European space policy – Green Paper (2003/2092(INI)) (Parliament adopted the resolution) *** Report (A5-0257/2003) by Mr Della Vedova, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the proposal for a Council regulation on the control of concentrations between undertakings: 'The EC Merger Regulation' (COM(2002) 711 – C5-0005/2003 – 2002/0296(CNS)) (Parliament adopted the legislative resolution) *** Motion for a resolution (B5-0411/2003) by Mrs Boogerd-Quaak, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on transfer of personal data by airlines in the case of transatlantic flights: state of negotiations with the USA (Parliament adopted the resolution) *** Motion for a resolution (B5-0410/2003) by Mrs Lulling and Mr Souchet, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on Difficulties encountered by European beekeeping (Parliament adopted the resolution) *** Report (A5-0303/2003) by Mr Cunha, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the Commission communication on an integrated framework for fisheries partnership agreements with third countries [COM(2002) 637 – C5-0070/2003 – 2003/2034(INI)] ***

Political group: Verts-ALE