GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Mr President, Mrs Klamt, ladies and gentlemen, what most worries our group is the lack of progress on the part of the Member States and the European Council in relation to asylum and immigration policies. While here we are discussing whether or not we want an open coordination method, the debate in the streets focuses on the more than fifteen deaths there have been off the Italian coasts, on the endless people, bodies, which appear on the coasts of the South of my country, on situations such as Sangatte, which the European public find truly exasperating, in two ways: on the one hand, because we find this situation distressing, and on the other, because the prevalent feeling seems to be that we are facing chaos, a situation of insecurity which is out of control. Of course, we want Community procedures for asylum. We believe that the current situation cannot continue and we are therefore prepared to support the European Commission’s proposal on the open coordination method as a step forward on the common policy. Naturally, the open coordination method cannot replace the necessary legislative approximation and harmonisation, but it can aid the establishment of these policies, in relation to which we must effectively increase the role of the European Parliament, as well as the collaboration of the UNHCR and the NGOs. Having said this, I believe we must remember more that asylum is a right that our States grant to persecuted people – which is due to our States’ and our citizens’ commitment to freedom. Therefore, the societies offering asylum should feel pride and satisfaction. We are therefore – and I am now referring to the second part of the report – in favour of this asylum system functioning properly. I believe that providing the best possible security means also providing the best possible measures for protecting these people. I believe that the application of the Geneva Convention and greater care with the methods we have established, not in relation to asylum, but in relation to other types of legislation, such as the common definition of terrorism or the step forward represented by the European arrest order, are very important and, applied efficiently, should be sufficient to guarantee security without prejudicing the right to asylum. I would also like to express our concern with regard to the countries with the death penalty and I would like to say that we are against collaboration with, and naturally expulsion to, those countries and also against the routine and non-individualised review of cases. Mr President, I regret that my time has run out because I would like to reply to Mr Turco, but I believe that he has not spoken about this report and I will do so through a point of order.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, I sat here throughout the debate yesterday on the statements by the Commission and the Council in relation to the tragedy in the United States. Not a single mention was made of the crisis being faced by the aviation industry in Europe as a result of this atrocity. It is incumbent on this House to make clear to the Commission and the Council that aid needs to be provided to the European airline industry and to the aviation industry in general, so that we can maintain a European aviation industry, particularly our airlines. Otherwise, we would be in a very serious situation, particularly if, as is proposed, the United States provides aid to their airlines. It is of the utmost importance that the tens of thousands of jobs currently under threat in the aviation industry are saved.

Political group: PSE
I voted against the Costa Neves report on the Commission's 2002 budget lines. Madam President, I should be very pleased if the European Commission were given more money for its budget. In the eyes of Mr Fatuzzo, however, what should the Commission do with this extra money that I hope to see made available in 2002? I would like to see a new Directorate created, for the sole purpose of looking into and implementing ways of improving the living conditions of elderly people and pensioners throughout Europe and the States which will soon be joining the European Union. There is a great deal to do, to propose and to achieve in Europe, particularly in terms of hospital and home medical treatments for elderly people, particularly elderly people who are not self-sufficient.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, Commissioner, I too would like to thank the Commission for its proposal for guidelines and the Commissioner for his words. I would also like to thank the rapporteur, for I feel that he has endeavoured in a short space of time to take into account all the different viewpoints in the House, without compromising on quality objectives. I would like to focus on a number of considerations. If we take into account the economic climate and the experience we have gained in recent years on the European employment strategy, it would appear that the Commission has already endeavoured in its proposals to define specific objectives which I consider to be particularly important because they are in line with the recommendations made by the Commission on the basis of the evaluation of national employment plans. I therefore believe that this strategy is becoming increasingly specific. If the Community institutions are to foster this tendency towards specific measures, we need firmer support from many Member States. In this regard, I would like to focus on a number of points. The Commission, the rapporteur and the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs have defined precisely a number of aspects of the Commission’s communication, such as the need to invest in quality and services to make female employment a reality. In all the countries, some of them in particular, this aspect of the employment situation is distressing, in that there is both a high inactivity rate and a high unemployment rate. Matters can be improved by providing training for women and the services necessary to make the market favourable to female employment. The amendments adopted in committee are along these lines. Then we need a more effective partnership at Member State level involving governments, national Parliaments and local authorities in their respective roles. I feel these are tangible goals. This is a point on which we all agree but which is incompatible with cutting taxes across the board, for we cannot have it both ways: either we have investment resources or we reduce taxation.

Political group: PSE
For over 300 000 of my compatriots, Venezuela is a land of opportunity for a better life which has welcomed them with open arms. The same has happened with hundreds of thousands of other European emigrants. As a matter of fact, over 70% of the Portuguese immigrants in Venezuela have come from my region of Madeira. This close link means that we have watched this disaster unfold with much sadness and emotion. It has also generated a great feeling of solidarity and it was therefore very pleasing to hear the Commission announce the provision of humanitarian aid. However, the extent of the tragedy which is now apparent has demonstrated the inadequacy of this aid. Venezuela is facing the greatest natural disaster to have occurred in Latin America in the twentieth century. We already know that at least 15 000 people have died and hundreds of thousands have lost their homes. The physical damage is estimated at between USD 10 and 20 billion and 230 000 jobs have been lost. In view of these incredible and tragic figures, the European Union must substantially increase its show of solidarity with Venezuela. This is why I have tabled a motion for a resolution in this House. The European Parliament, as the representative of the people of Europe, must show its grief and its solidarity. Parliament must also encourage the Commission to increase the humanitarian aid in order to meet the overwhelming needs in areas such as medical care, water, public health, food and so on. We also propose that the Commission prepares a medium-term action plan for the reconstruction of the infrastructure and housing given that the recovery of the affected area could take more than seven years. This plan must also encourage and stimulate the resumption of economic activities through financial incentives, subsidised loans and specialised assistance. We also call on the Commission to make every effort to mobilise the means needed to carry out these actions. We must not be satisfied with good intentions. This is the least that we can do for the victims of these floods.

Political group: PPE-DE
According to the World Health Organisation, the definition of the term “Reproductive Health” includes the term “fertility regulation” which contains “interrupting unwanted pregnancies”, i.e. abortion on demand. In the interest of subsidiarity, paragraphs and related amendments dealing with reproductive health should not be included in an EP document, unless clearly and honestly defined. There is a worldwide commonly agreed terminology which is “Primary Health Care” defined at the WHO conference in Alma Ata, 1978, which deals with Women and Mother’s Health without including abortion on demand. Furthermore, in paragraph 18, the use of language leaves the meaning unclear and open to interpretation; prevention of “girl pregnancies” has the unfortunate double meaning of specifically seeking to prevent pregnancies where the conceived child is a girl. Ambiguities such as this should not be allowed to stand in a report conceived as instructions for the negotiating team in New York for the remainder of the Beijing +5 session. Regarding paragraph 26, which states that “the respect of women's rights should be one of the main conditions for the granting of aid and should be closely monitored in all external relations and cooperation”, the European Union must not tie any specifications to its distribution of aid nor impose any conditions for the reception of aid amongst women, realising that women are extremely vulnerable to the use of coercion and coercive techniques in order to realise their basic human rights such as shelter, nutrition, education and basic health care. The EU must exercise extreme caution that current definitions should be consistent with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as women are not a minority group.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I have listened to you very carefully, but I believe many MEPs and many European citizens have been left with a bad taste in our mouths in view of the results of the last summit, held in Nice, where the Charter of Human Rights was not approved, and I do not know why the representatives of the Member States’ governments did not want to approve it. But the fact is that I asked a question on a concrete case of human rights, relating to the use of Euskera [Basque] – the so-called lingua navarrorum – in the Autonomous Community of Navarre, and the Commission replied that as language rights are a subject not in force in the Charter of Human Rights at a European level, complaints can only be made at the level of national institutions and courts. I should like to ask you if you agree with this kind of explanation or whether we European citizens have a right to greater protection by the European institutions.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, I see two problems with this morning’s debate. Firstly, when I came to this Parliament many years ago I was told that if you had a difficult job you gave it to a Liberal. Now I have been told that if you have a difficult debate you know you are in trouble if half the Luxembourg Members are in the Chamber at one time – and they are. Firstly, I welcome proposal No 1. It simplifies things and brings things up to date. I think many of the British Members will be voting against a large number of the amendments in the report. We support the Schmidt report on proposal No 1, but we regret the fact that the directive sets a lot of quantity limits that restrict the ability to spread risks. We believe that a more liberal market is the best way forward. Secondly, we consider proposal No 2 to be very confused. It is difficult to understand, and we think the Commission would be well advised to look at it again. If further regulation is needed, we feel that it could be better achieved by other means than those proposed in the directive. In particular, we disagree with the proposal on capital requirements because if they are put too high they could actually drive some businesses out of the industry altogether. We ask the Commission to look again at these proposals. Finally, we would urge Members to vote in particular against Amendment No 41 on capital requirements, because we feel that this would be very bad for the industry.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, I too want to thank you for the efforts that you personally have made to enable Oswaldo José Payá Sardiñas to leave Cuba after a thousand and one difficulties and no end of bureaucratic obstacles. I want you to know however that, among those Cubans who are not allowed to leave the country, are dozens of people who, after having put their names to the Varela Project calling for a referendum, have been expelled from their universities, imprisoned, harassed, maltreated and arrested. The only crime they have committed is to endorse a referendum on democracy. That shows just how provocative a prize this is, and how important it is. I thought you might want to be aware of this before the discussion and prize-giving ceremony tomorrow.

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the reports before us take considerations of principle as a reason for rejecting the Danish and Greek initiatives on the development of Europol. That is only right, as the only possible response to the continued attempts at letting Europol carry on working as it did before is to say that the Europol of the future must not function without being influenced and monitored by Parliament, nor will it if this House has anything to do with it. I therefore want to thank both rapporteurs for having again put this message in unambiguous terms. I find the goings-on in this sensitive area scarcely credible. A number of reports by Parliament have, over and over again, demanded real Parliamentary control of Europol, but to date nothing has happened. Instead, Europol is to continue to be strengthened and extended. I find this quite simply scandalous. In view of what is going on in the background at the European Convention's discussions, the various initiatives by individual governments seem positively Kafkaesque, for they go beyond the proposals before the Convention on the reform of internal affairs and judicial matters. Being a member of the Convention, I therefore support the idea of this House again putting its main demand before the Council and the governments and confronting them with it. I also endorse Mr von Boetticher's demand for there to be no amendments made to the Europol convention before the European constitution is ratified. I think this should be obvious if the Convention and its work are to be taken seriously. I endorse the demands in the motion for a resolution, for Europol to be transferred to the first pillar and funded from the EU Budget, thus becoming subject to Parliament's full Budgetary control, and for the constitution to contain a legal basis for clear and utterly stringent data protection, with public access to documents not being able to be improperly restricted. The most important thing, though, is something that my fellow-Members have already emphasised, namely that Europol should be entirely subject to Parliament's control. As a member of the Convention, I can only ask you to continue to observe carefully the negotiations in progress in the Convention on this issue, for, in my view – if I may give an example – the basic thrust of the proposals on Europol from the Convention's Praesidium is that it should be, to a large degree, left to its own devices when it comes to laying down precisely what its role is. As I do not regard that as acceptable, I have asked that it should be the legislatures alone – by which I mean specifically the Council and Parliament acting together – that should legislate to define the precise functions of these authorities along with all their ramifications. (Applause)

Political group: GUE-NGL
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted in favour of Mrs Schleicher’s report on the statute and financing of European political parties. The Treaty contains provisions concerning the political parties. The most important purpose of this statute is to create openness and transparency in the financing of the European political parties. The European Parliament’s amendment is a substantial tightening up of the Commission’s proposal, which we can fully support. An important point are the demands that European parties be representative. We are of the view that the demands must not be so tough that it is only the major parties that are covered by the rules. It is important to recognise that smaller parties too contribute substantially to European democracy, especially in connection with enlargement.

Political group: PSE
We have become increasingly concerned about money laundering, which constitutes a source of funding for international terrorism and crime. We know that cash is crossing borders as a result of the absence of controls that would allow movements to be monitored along the entire length of the Community frontier. The directive on money laundering lays down controls on transactions carried out by financial institutions involving sums of EUR 15 000 or more but not on cash movements. This must be achieved by other means, such as introducing controls over cash movements across the Community border, creating uniform rules, plugging loopholes and seeking to balance the need for these controls with the need to protect the internal market and the free movement of capital. What is required is a Community-based approach, but one which respects, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, Member States’ freedom to choose the procedure that suits them. Defining the objectives and rules to be complied with should be done at Community level, but the way in which these are implemented should be left to the discretion of each Member State.

Political group: PPE-DE
The purpose of the programme that we have been debating today is to organise the dismantling of the Joint Research Centre’s nuclear installations and the management of waste resulting from their nuclear activities. I do not have any major disagreement with the basic proposal, but I do have questions about this programme’s budget, and the rapporteur has not provided us with any practical proposals on this. It is true that he rejected the proposal by the European Commission. Let us remember that the Commission proposed that it would finance this operation by using, at the end of each year, unspent appropriations from heading 3. To this end, it would use a ‘reception’ line under the current sub-section B4, which covers energy, the monitoring of nuclear safety and the environment. This solution may be satisfactory insofar as it places financing outside the framework programmes for research, a point stressed by the European Parliament, but it nevertheless falls short of what is required. We cannot accept the long-term financing of the dismantling of nuclear activities through a ‘miscellaneous’ line, of an order which is left to chance. I must take this opportunity to say that I do not approve of the growing frequency with which we resort to this type of line! I imagine that this is what led the rapporteur to “take note” of the Commission’s proposal, without actually putting it into practice. The report proposes that we establish a trialogue between the institutions in order to reach a solution but says nothing about the alternative means for financing that have been suggested. The most mistaken course of action would therefore be to have the dismantling of these nuclear activities financed by Member States, by methods that still remain to be found. That would inevitably cause a backlash in the countries that are not greatly affected by this problem. On the other hand, the most suitable solution is the one that seeks to have this programme financed by a self-contained budget line. I am quite aware that it is not the easiest solution, because it involves voting for additional appropriations in the review of the Financial Perspectives. Nevertheless, we must provide ourselves with the means to achieve our ambitions, particularly when we are talking about nuclear activity. In the long term, then, we will have to put pressure on the Council to accept the creation of this self-contained budget line. In the shorter term, for pragmatic reasons, we should not obstruct the rapid implementation of this programme. I therefore support the following compromise: in the very short term we set up the ‘picking up the pieces’ line proposed by the Commission, and initiate the trialogue promptly in order, in the medium term, to achieve a vote for an self-contained budget line. (The sitting was suspended at 1.40 p.m. and resumed at 3.00 p.m.) IN THE CHAIR: MR IMBENIVice-President (1)

Political group: PSE
Mr President, I very much welcome what the Commissioner has said, for three reasons. Firstly, because although we are about to invoke the WTO dispute procedure, it is an unwieldy procedure and we may lose capacity in the interim. Secondly, because although I can understand the context and rationale for withdrawing the shipbuilding intervention fund, I am nevertheless convinced that we need to have structural measures, particularly in the areas of research, construction of oil and drilling vessels, chemical carriers and cruise liners. While the second report clearly outlines the inadequacies of China's development in this area – poor management, corruption etc. – while they are outside the WTO, I do not think we can be sanguine about the potential that they might develop. Therefore we need to take action very quickly. In a constituency where we have lost 10 000 shipbuilding jobs in the last ten years, I welcome the measures that you have outlined tonight but hope that we can move faster and further in the coming months.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, the Committee on Women’s Rights and Equal Opportunities has given a positive opinion on all the proposals made and we want to thank the rapporteur for agreeing to include in his report certain aspects of the gender dimension that were missing from the documents. That seems to us absolutely essential because progress remains totally inadequate despite an avowed willingness to promote equality between women and men all these years past. There are two points to be made. Firstly, the situation of women in the new Member States, which requires special attention. The second point is a regret, Mr President, Commissioner, that our recommendations on methodology have not been followed. If we are really to achieve the gender mainstreaming we want, however, we need genuine local appraisals of the situation of women. We need to have people who are working for gender equality sitting on the Structural Fund monitoring committees. Finally, all the specific actions deployed must incorporate these conditions so that women are involved in employment, in training, but also, Mr President, in decision-making.

Political group: PSE