GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Mr President, I too am concerned that there is so little interest in discussing this type of matter, but I wonder whether this is a consequence of the way in which our activities are timetabled or of our approach to these matters. Ultimately, what is at stake is basically the use of taxpayers’ money. I therefore believe that the European Parliament’s discharge of the budget must always allow for meaningful political debate. Fortunately, this has to some extent happened – quite recently – thereby contributing to the credibility of Community budgetary policy. Our examination of the budget of the five agencies that are the subject of this report should be seen in the context of these objectives and is geared towards achieving these priorities. All of the report’s proposals to grant discharge are accompanied by Parliamentary motions for resolutions and it is precisely in these motions for resolution that Parliament must exercise its political power. It can do so by drawing up recommendations or by expressing the hope that the activities of the agencies take a particular direction, both as regards the need to improve internal operations and supervision and the urgent need to increase their effectiveness in undertaking these activities. The report makes various observations and suggestions – which I will not list, because I have so little time – praising the words and the opinion of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs on the European Agency responsible for health and safety in the workplace. There is, however, one aspect of a general nature that I believe warrants particular mention. This is the report’s proposal to change the composition of the agencies’ boards of administration, so as to ensure that they have more of a role. There are many financial reasons for such action, and in some cases operational reasons, which would mean that these boards could not function if they were larger than a certain size. Symptomatically, these concerns arise, as the Commissioner’s speech has just made clear, at a time when we are rapidly approaching a process of welcoming – at political level – new countries into the Community family. Without denying the validity of these concerns, the European Parliament must cautiously reflect on the true nature of the positions it will be adopting, because options that take a purely economic view are quite unacceptable. Safeguarding the principle of representativeness and total equality between Member States is, in the current context, absolutely crucial.

Political group: PSE
We welcome the work which has now begun on preparing an EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. A Charter of this kind will have a very important symbolic value and will strengthen the confidence of our citizens in the EU and in European integration. The Charter of Fundamental Rights should be seen as complementing the European Convention on Human Rights, which we believe should be incorporated into the Treaty. The Charter should concentrate on the relationship between citizens and the European institutions. Its primary objective should be to guarantee that the Union is governed openly. The Charter should be legally binding through its also being incorporated into the EU’s Treaty. The Charter must not only be a declaration, but also entail obligations of some kind on the part of the EU’s institutions and Member States. We would emphasise the subsidiarity principle and the fact that the Charter should concentrate on the fundamental freedoms and rights of citizens, as presented in accordance with the Member States’ common constitutional traditions. We would emphasise the importance of the social dimension in the EU’s activities but consider that social policy is mainly a question for each individual Member State to decide upon.

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, I should like to make a couple of general points and a couple of specific points about this report. Firstly, generally, I support the common position – it is a useful compromise – but I would not support going any further than that. This is useful as a framework directive but I would not like to see lots of further directives springing from it. We need to be very careful in applying the principles of subsidiarity, a view which is being widely expressed across the Chamber. I am not sure that we would have any credibility whatsoever as a Parliament or as a European Union if we started to dictate to our citizens what hours they can or cannot sleep. This is a matter that should be determined for them at a local level. If an airport, for instance, is located in the centre of a city, then the limit values that should be acceptable there are completely different to those at an airport located out on a peninsula in a quiet rural area. Why should not a particular community seek to set up an airport, for instance as a cargo hub, that can experience noise pollution in excess of what a large city should produce? This is a matter for local authorities and for national governments and should not be a matter for this Parliament and for Europe. I should like to ask those people who wanted to include military aircraft and military airfields within the scope of this directive, whether they are really saying, as Europe is, at the moment, in a state of war, that our airforces cannot operate at night or with planes that are too noisy, that they cannot defend our freedoms against terrorist attacks if their aircraft are too noisy. I suggest that if that proposal is being made seriously, it would be laughed out of court across Europe. I am in favour of legislation laying down noise limits for specific projects, but we really are going far too far in many aspects of the amendments proposed in this directive.

Political group: PPE-DE
I should just like to recall that, during the lengthy process of approving the present Commission, every Commissioner was questioned by the Women’s Committee on how they would tackle the issue of equality within their own particular field. We shall be monitoring each Commissioner carefully, so the other Commissioners have now been forewarned. Thank you for your reply. I interpret it as saying that you agree that what is needed is an action plan to enable more women to take part in specific environmental fields. I should also like to point out that the Beijing Declaration emphasises the importance of having the institutional capacity to introduce a perspective of equality into all environmental programmes. Environmental agencies often do not have the required knowledge or procedures for incorporating such a perspective into their daily work. I naturally want to know whether the Commissioner is willing to incorporate the idea of equality into environmental policy and programmes. This is a crucial goal. In order for all policies to be similarly permeated by the concept of equality, it is especially important that people in key posts should have the basic knowledge required.

Political group: PSE
This proposal for a regulation seeks to temporarily stabilise the degressivity of specific aid to Portugal for cereals, by maintaining the same level of aid for the 2001/2002 season as for this year. This decision, with which we agree, was taken under the Portuguese Presidency of the EU, and seeks to maintain the cofinancing of aid for one year, thereby compensating for the collapse in income of Portuguese farmers. Nevertheless, given the pressures from the CAP on farmers’ incomes and bearing in mind the needs of Portuguese farmers, stabilising degressivity should cover the whole period of the current financial framework, in other words, until the 2005/2006 season. Furthermore, an upper limit must be imposed for the stabilisation of cofinanced aid, twice the limit of the simplified system, for example, as a means of making savings that could finance either the extension of stabilisation or the creation of support mechanisms for the production of protein crops, or the establishment of a conversion programme for alternative crops to cereals, in order to make the best use of land that cannot be so intensively farmed. It is worth pointing out that many small farmers in Portugal are prevented from receiving proper aid for not selling all of their produce. These farmers should be able to use their produce for on-farm consumption, which would guarantee their right to aid, if, for example, they base their application on the income brackets of their farms. - Trakatellis report (A5-0104/2001)

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, I too welcome the Harbour report, even if we are attempting tonight to deliver the promise at a time when most people are tucked up in bed. I am very grateful to Mr Harbour, not only for being so magnanimous in his comments about the work I carried out on this report, but also for taking on so many of the numerous amendments I tabled. I am particularly grateful to him for taking up my initiative calling upon the Member States, at the Spring Summit, to reaffirm their commitment to delivering the promise of a single market by signing up to a solemn declaration in this, the single market's tenth anniversary year. I hope the Greek Presidency and the Commission can take up this initiative. Such an initiative is needed because if Member States were to be given the equivalent of an end of term school report, there would be no gold stars for model pupils. Rather, they would receive the comment 'could do better'. In fact, they could do much better. The November scoreboard illustrates our failure to deliver. We are failing businesses by not reducing barriers; we are failing consumers, who in many sectors are not seeing the benefits of more choice and cheaper goods; and finally we are sliding backwards in terms of our attempt to achieve the goal of becoming the world's most competitive economy by 2010. Future scoreboards must not only quantify the benefits of single market laws, they should, as Mr Harbour suggested, include an index of damage illustrating the costs of non-implementation. The Commission should undertake a rigorous evaluation of why Member States are failing to implement, and it must identify the root cause. Is it simply a case of national protectionism? Is it due to concern for consumer protection, or to a lack of administrative capacity in Member States? I agree that there should be strong sanctions for non-implementation, swift action, tight deadlines and effective deterrents to non-implementation. Otherwise I fear, Commissioner, that we will be here in ten years' time talking about the need to complete the internal market. Achieving a single market in financial services in one fell swoop could boost EU growth by 1.1%. It would add EUR 130 billion to Europe's wealth and reduce the cost of raising capital for business by 0.5%. The takeover directive, as I know you agree, Commissioner, is a key component of financial services in single markets. I agree that we in this Parliament should get it onto the statute book as soon as possible.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, I would like firstly, as other Members have done, to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Manders, and the rapporteur for my group, Mrs Niebler, who has not just been able to reach agreements with Mr Manders, but also to seek consensus within the group and also to inform us punctually of what was happening with this proposed Directive. As has rightly been said, we are dealing with a really important Directive. We are all aware of the importance of environmental protection and the fact that this Directive reflects the ‘polluter pays’ principle. However, we must also be aware that polluters are often companies, and we must ensure their survival within our economy. I therefore believe that there are two important principles: the first, which Mr Gargani has mentioned, is not to promote the relocation of our companies towards other markets, and the second is to find the greatest possible degree of harmonisation within the European Union. I believe that all the countries of the Union must comply with this Directive, and it must oblige the Member States equally: we must not allow each Member State to apply it differently. The scope must be as broad as possible, as laid down in the common position, and, with regard to the possible exceptions for operators with regard to compliance with any previous legislation, I believe it is true that Amendments Nos 9 and 16 are excessive, as has been said here, and would allow some companies to escape their duty to pay. But it is true that we must seek some mechanism according to which the fact that companies comply with the legislation in force is considered a mitigating factor. With regard to the reparation measures, we must allow the Member States to be able to cover the damage created, as reparation measures, as laid down in Amendments Nos 10, 11 and 12 approved by the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market. Finally, with regard to the time period during which a company can be held responsible, I believe that the 30 years laid down in the common position is an excessive period. The environmental contingency it would represent for companies seems to me to be excessive, and I support Mrs Thyssen’s amendment, which would reduce this time period to 10 years: it makes much more sense to reduce the time period during which companies must be held responsible for the environmental damage caused.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, the increase in the number of asylum seekers over the last few years is causing grave problems for Member States, which are having serious difficulty in coping with the situation. As Deputy Mayor of the city of Lyon, I see this problem every day. In my city, the number of conventional asylum seekers has doubled in a little less than a year. The two Commission communications that we are debating today are certainly an important step forward. However, we must go further and put an end to the current situation, in which some Member States allow in refugees coming from certain countries whereas others do not. We must ensure that the countries that receive refugees really do have the means to do so. In recent times, however, those means have been reduced. We can no longer receive asylum seekers with dignity. In our cities we have families living under canvas. This is absolutely unacceptable. Winter is approaching and we are heading for a catastrophe. In order to make progress, however, I invite, above all, the governments of Member States and the Council to take the courageous decisions that are necessary. Insisting on maintaining positions which are too national will end up becoming indecent and irresponsible when the lives of thousands of refugees are at stake and when certain districts in our major European cities are at risk of turning into ghettos.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Ruffolo’s report seeks to achieve better and deeper cooperation between the Member States, with regard to their respective cultural policies. It also makes another good point that should be highlighted: the Commission’s cultural policy, specifically in its implementation of the Culture 2000 framework programme, should prevent a degree of fluctuation in the criteria for the selection of candidates. The Commission is swamped every year with a huge variety of proposals, but the resources available to it are ridiculously limited and there are many agents and operators whose valid proposals are passed over as a result of these limitations. The Commission is currently trying to come up with procedures that will, in its opinion, provide a better response to these problems. The follow-up to Culture 2000 will soon be studied and we shall make a statement on it. Using the instruments described in Mr Ruffolo’s report will ultimately provide the Commission with more precise data on the cultural policies of the Member States and on the cultural requirements they feel they have. A cultural policy at European level must take these factors into consideration when defining its objectives and outlining its criteria for selecting candidates. We should not forget that we are talking about a European cultural policy and not about national policies. These, incidentally, are also covered, to a great extent, by the Structural Funds, and it therefore makes sense to take account of the dual nature of the resources involved. Nevertheless, we must methodically separate the scope of a European cultural policy, on the one hand, from the range of national policies, on the other. At European level, therefore, the institutions should concern themselves mainly with the implications of the cultural heritage common to all of Europe and avoid confusion with national policies developed by the Member States without prejudice, of course, to stimulating multilateral dialogue between the contemporary creations of these States. A European cultural policy must contribute to actively placing Europe’s huge and multifaceted cultural heritage within the grasp of its citizens.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, the reason why I rise to speak on this point is that the experience of the last few weeks in connection with the handling of the Stability and Growth Pact, that is to say of European law, have made clear how important it is that the Intergovernmental Conference should still include price stability in the list of the EU’s objectives in the European constitution. Another reason why I have asked for the floor is that the experience of recent days and weeks has shown how important it is that the Protocol of the Stability and Growth Pact should, like other protocols, be appended to the constitution as an annex. And I have asked to speak also because I believe that the experience of the last few weeks also clearly shows us that the debate on the constitution has been, in part, nationalised, and that we must take care that the nationalisation of a European project does not jeopardise this great project through national referendum. If there is to be a referendum, then let there be one consultation of the European people, with one Europe-wide result and dual majority of votes and countries. We have talked about how the Constitution must make Europe more transparent and more democratic and bring it closer to the people, which is what it is meant to do. So I appeal to the President of the Council to see to it that the Commission is strengthened, that this House’s rights of codecision are extended, that Parliament retains sovereignty over the Budget, and nothing is done to aid and abet the attempt by the finance ministers, in their letter to the President of the Council, to force the Commission and Parliament to keep silent about their rights. The Europe we need is Community-oriented rather than intergovernmental. The Constitution is the outward expression of strengthened Community institutions, and I ask you to counteract all the attempts made by groupings within the Council to hand back Europe to the nation states. (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE
I was very interested in the Commissioner's response and her definition of languages, which is well known in this House. I fully support the notion of providing financial assistance to minority and lesser-spoken languages, and like many colleagues I am familiar with the educational programmes and the work of the Bureau. As the Commissioner knows, respect for someone else's language, respect for that person and his or her culture and customs, helps support the integration of those communities. In that vein, can I ask the Commissioner to at least consider, perhaps by means of a study or a survey, giving support for re-defining the definition and including other languages perhaps non-European in origin, but still spoken and understood by many people, languages understood across many EU states – Urdu, Hindi, Bengali and Tamil, to name but a few. I realise that this is a significant suggestion, but my fear is that if we do not at least consider this, we will be sending a very divisive message to many ethnic minority communities at a key time of integration. In effect we will be saying that languages spoken by a few hundred people in some cases, and I agree with the support of those languages, are more important to the EU than others spoken by hundreds of thousands. I wonder whether the Commissioner would be prepared to consider that?

Political group: PSE
Mr President, I believe that, with the rapporteur's agreement, we should at least change the date, because it still says 1 March here, and the additional wording needs to be discussed in the Committee on Constitutional Affairs. However, the date ought to be changed.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, on a point of order, I have tabled amendments to this because it is a very unusual procedure. The same thing happened four years ago, which is why I protested in committee. It was suddenly placed on the agenda without proper documentation and without the proper procedures, and in this amendment we have asked the Commission to bring it forward three months before the end of the budgetary period so that it can be discussed properly in future. It is about the Petten reactor in Holland, which we are always assured is for medical research. However, we discovered when looking at the Commission documentation, which as I said was provided very late – in fact, only this week – that it actually deals with military-grade plutonium and research into that. That is a very serious topic and we need to be properly informed on such research within the boundaries of the European Union. I have tabled amendments to that effect. We were not able to discuss it or to debate it either in committee or in plenary, which is why I am drawing it to your attention now.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Madam President, I shall keep to the subject of the Minutes. For some strange reason, my name is missing from the register of attendance. I would ask you to correct this and would at the same time take the opportunity to point out that it has been possible today to come here to Strasbourg from Finland in just nine hours. That is almost a personal record for me this autumn!

Political group: ELDR