GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Mr President, animals in the past, apart from those traditionally involved in transhumance, did not travel long distances and so throughout their lives they only made the journey to the slaughterhouse. Today, however, the problem of regulating the various aspects of transport has become a major component of legislation in the animal production sector. The first requirement that has arisen concerns health, especially the spread of transmissible diseases. Added to this is the increasingly important question of animal protection and stress factors. Animal welfare during transport more directly involves operators other than farmers, even though the latter often suffer its consequences, both upstream, when they receive the animals to be added to their holdings, and downstream, because of the effects that transport can have on quality and hence on the return they get for their products. Legislation protecting livestock during transport, in particular the regulation on which we are preparing to vote, is based on scientific and technical evidence. In this specific instance, we recall the studies following the report by the Scientific Committee on Animal Health and Animal Welfare, which took into account over 300 sources and drew up 55 recommendations. If we consider the five freedoms mentioned in the Bremmer report in 1995, we realise that the unloading, loading and moving operations will have a profound effect on each of these five freedoms. Indeed, it has been proved that this set of operations causes the animals greater stress and suffering than any other farming practice. I therefore think that the maximum hours proposed and the system of rest periods are too reductionist, and the reasoning adopted in support of shorter travelling times cannot be justified from a scientific point of view: the Scientific Committee itself did not set this limit when it drew up its report. There is no doubt that transport can have a great many adverse effects on animals, but the whole situation must be analysed in technical terms for the good of both the animals themselves and the operators.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, President-in-Office of the Council, President of the Commission and Commissioner, the electorate has spoken in France, Germany and latterly also in Ireland. There are still a few countries in which they need to have their voices heard, which will cause the necessary problems, as there are still questions on this score. The politicians, however, must now roll up their sleeves as a matter of urgency, not as carpet dealers, as Mrs Schröder mentioned, but with the necessary vision and courage. I should like to ask a specific question with regard to the information which President Prodi mentioned. In my many dealings with the public, I have noticed that the same questions arise time and again among the people in Flanders and Belgium. I think that they are entitled to an answer. There is the answer about the vision, and you can win people over with this. However, there are other questions that keep being asked in my country. Will horizontal enlargement not obstruct vertical enlargement? In other words, will this enlargement not spell the definitive end of our growth towards a community? Will this be intergovernmentalism's final victory? This question has been raised in Belgium and has, for example, prompted the Socialist Party – which is, after all, the key government partner at present – to question the meaning of this enlargement. I should like to ask a second question which people keep asking me – at least people in our regions. They naturally visit the countries that will be our future partners, and in that sense, Europe is already growing in the hearts and minds of the people, but they notice that those countries are experiencing major problems, abject poverty and problems involving minorities. We are also experiencing a time of economic decline and a time when the spectre of unemployment is once again looming large in the EU countries themselves. Then people want an answer to the question whether we will be able to fight the unemployment that is now threatening us. I am convinced that future enlargement will make this possible. I do believe, however, that we should not merely present people with a vision and good news; we should also produce specific answers to the questions that are being raised on a daily basis, questions concerning the costs and also, of course, questions that I have raised myself and that will need to be resolved in the Convention.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, I am, of course, tempted now to go into what Mr Pirker has said about our expectations of the Council Presidency. It would be amusing but, unfortunately, our time for such statements is limited and I must postpone that until this afternoon. What we are discussing here is the annual report on the area of freedom, security and justice. I therefore have the following request to make of the Portuguese Council Presidency. The Council, not the Council Presidency, denied Parliament a written report on the establishment of an area of freedom, security and justice. An oral motion was tabled, but we have no written reply from the Council, on the grounds that it will suffice if the Council makes an oral statement here today. This behaviour is typical, not of the Council Presidency, but of the Council officials who behave like an authoritarian state towards this Parliament. Authoritarian states tend to say: we the authoritarian representatives shall decide what is and what is not good for the purposes of representing the people. That is precisely what we in this Parliament frequently experience in connection with the area of freedom, security and justice. We have heard this morning from the Portuguese Presidency that it is prepared to work together with the European Parliament in a highly constructive manner in this area and we emphatically welcome this. In my view, everything that the Portuguese Presidency has submitted shows tremendous openness towards the parliamentary institution of the European Union. And that is how it should be; we must be clear, especially in the area of intergovernmental action, which is, of course, still in the Treaty, that, as we extend the area of freedom, security and justice, the European Parliament takes on a central role wherever action is taken which, although intergovernmental, has a direct effect on individual citizens and where national parliaments are less involved than previously. So when a Council Presidency says, as the Portuguese Presidency has done: yes, we acknowledge that, then I think that Parliament cannot but emphatically support that and say, if only all Council Presidencies behaved thus, then relations between Parliament and the Council would improve at this level.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, I would like to congratulate the Danish presidency and Mr Bertel Haarder for their presence and for the very ambitious programme to keep to the deadlines for enlargement. My first question is two-fold. Do you really believe that you can keep to the deadlines, given the big differences on agricultural policy? Will there be enough time between November and December to conclude these negotiations within the Europe of the 15? My second question concerns the so-called presidential decrees and the Beneš decrees. There are tensions between Germany and the Czech Republic, and also between Austria and the Czech Republic, concerning the recent and very bitter past. The past should not stand in the way of the present. For this reason I would like to ask you whether you would use your political influence, Prime Minister, to ease these tensions and to use your influence on the Czech government to respond to the European Parliament's report on the Czech Republic, which asks the Czech side to repeal the relevant decrees by the latest at the time of accession.

Political group: PPE-DE
Madam President, I would like to thank my colleague, Mr Vidal-Quadras Roca, for drafting an excellent report. The dismantling of obsolete reactors and the disposal of spent fuel are essential to the future of Europe’s nuclear research and energy sector. Nuclear power is currently the most important and versatile form of energy production and will remain so far into the future. For example, in addition to normal production, many modern plants can utilise the plutonium that would have been used for nuclear weapons prior to decommissioning. Serious research into renewable energy sources is possible when we have another form of cheap energy at our disposal. Assurance of nuclear safety is one of the most important preconditions of the Union’s enlargement eastwards. Both the candidate countries and the Union have to work hard, via the TACIS and PHARE programmes, for example, to make sure that obsolete and disused nuclear plants can be made environmentally safe in a sustainable way. This, however, must be done in a controlled way. Calls for the dismantling of plants in Eastern Europe which are obsolete but which are in working order may lead to an uncontrollable downward spiral in the energy sector. Nobody wants to drive the countries of Eastern Europe into a situation where they are completely dependent on imported energy. We must invest more in the disposal of radioactive waste. For example, several years of effort have been made in Finland to solve the problem of disposal. A sustainable model for a solution already exists. I hope that the political will to grapple with this issue as swiftly as possible will be found elsewhere in Europe.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, why do we need such a Charter? It clearly is not, as Mr Berthu has said, in order to create a European super-state but more, as Mrs Berès has said, to make it clear to today's citizens and tomorrow's citizens that what we are in now is a Community of values: values based on democracy, freedom, equality, solidarity and respect for diversity, values – and I stress this to Mrs Garaud – that unite Europeans across frontiers, from the north, the south, the east and the west of the Community. The big question is not whether we need such a Charter but what status it should have. Some have argued that the Charter should simply gather together in a readable form all the rights that currently exist within the European Union. This would be a valuable exercise: there is clearly a problem of awareness of people's rights. Many citizens do not know the rights that exist today. A document clearly laying out such rights, and making it clear where and how these rights could be exercised, would be valuable. But if that was all we were doing in the Convention then we should have left it to a team of academics, who frankly could have done it better than a group of 60 politicians. I believe we have a team of 60 politicians working on the Convention because it is our duty to identify gaps in existing rights, to identify weaknesses in existing structures and to show the political will to correct those weaknesses. So the Charter must fill in any gaps in existing rights, and it must be binding on the institutions of the European Union. However, it is clear that not all rights will be equal, at least in the way they are implemented. The rights need to be in two categories. There needs to be a list of rights which will be directly upheld by the courts, but there also needs to be another list of general rights which the Community institutions and others will have to take into account when drafting policies; some in the Court, some simply as background forming a valuable basis when we are taking other decisions. What is clear, and what unites most people in this Chamber who want such a Charter, is that it must be in the Treaties. If it is to impact on the citizen it must appear in the Treaties of the European Union.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I am actually also of the opinion that this report represents a genuine step forward in the debate on the competences of Europe – not only intellectually, but also politically. I will thank Mr Lamassoure not only for thinking deeply, but also for listening intently during our debates. Above all, I see this report as carrying two messages. As MEPs, we also want to be given definite responsibilities. Our defence against the charge of centralist interference is that it is clearly laid down what we are competent to do and what we are not competent to do. The second message contained in the report is that we want more Europe in external relations, and more Europe in the worldwide representation of European interests, but that we are also ready to do without one thing or another in internal matters and leave detailed rules to the Member States. It is interesting that a success has been made of decentralisation in recent years, not only in all the EU's Member States, but also in the acceding countries. Even enterprises that work on a global scale act according to the principle of ‘small units and big networks’. Hence it is in our own interests that we should, as MEPs, concentrate on the core competences we possess and should also give that outward expression. The Commission has been remarkably bold in this respect; you, Mr President of the Commission, Mr Barnier, and your fellow-Commissioner Mr Vitorino too, have had something to say about this yourselves. This report offers our citizens – even the Euro-sceptics – a modern, effective, and transparent Europe.

Political group: PPE-DE
British Conservatives believe that this report is an outrageous intrusion into the domestic affairs of the UK and other Member States. The unwarranted attacks on valuable public servants such as policemen and prison guards are completely unacceptable and cannot be substantiated. The reality is that we live in a dangerous world in which our liberty is threatened by terrorists, dictators and violent crimes. The British public is entitled to expect its elected representatives to defend and protect it, not to leave it vulnerable in these vital areas. The report shows the European union in a very bad light. In her report Miss Swiebel expresses her own personal views on human rights. British Conservative MEPs urge the parliamentary authorities to ensure that future reports of this kind are under the stewardship of someone who will take a less personal and more objective approach.

Political group: PPE-DE
U). – (FR) Madam President, the Union for a Europe of Nations Group did not associate itself with the joint - resolution on the political situation in Austria following the formation in that country of a coalition government between the conservatives and Jörg Haider’s Freedom Party. This PPE/DE- resolution commends the initiative taken by fourteen Member States to apply pressure to Austria by organising a sort of diplomatic boycott. What we find most shocking is the fact that this joint intervention claims the authority of the Treaty, as if this stated somewhere that henceforth the free and democratic expression of a people could be cancelled by the will of the heads of government of neighbouring countries who in fact, in this instance, have carefully refrained from consulting their own peoples. Whatever Jörg Haider’s verbal excesses, which we of course deplore, the Austrians have made a democratic choice, and we must respect this. In our opinion, it is clear that the left wing in the European Parliament, in association with the Austrian left wing which was defeated in the electoral arena, have mounted a petty political campaign resorting to the memory of a sinister but fortunately bygone period. Although comparing Haider to Hitler is a concept without any credibility whatsoever, it has nonetheless partly achieved its purpose in unsettling some PPE/DE Members of Parliament. But, going beyond this petty political operation, what the majority in the European Parliament is afraid of most of all is that the threat to the left-right cohabitation in Austria, which caused political life to stagnate and rot, may soon spread to the European system of co-management which is producing equally appalling results. In order to prevent this threat to the system, it is ready to do anything, including overruling the outcome of free elections, including setting up a thought police, including establishing a new form of totalitarianism.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, Commissioner, I would like to stress that I am grateful to see Point 7, the special purchasing programme. It makes the position clear. This means that tests are carried out before storage, and above all each Member State can make its own decision. I am very grateful for that. That creates a very acceptable basis for debate. I have a question concerning the stocking density. The ratio of forage area to cereal is 2.0 to 1.8 – so do I automatically increase the base area to give farmers an opportunity to further improve their living by growing cereals? Now for my second question. And I would like to welcome Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf with his bow tie, maybe that is a reference to the fact that he now has clover grass, but we could also use Lucerne grass, that is just as good. Can you tell me why we do not use pulses, which we urgently need as a substitute for animal meal in these areas, and why does everything necessarily have to be organic?

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur and welcome the contents of this report. It has caused me to reflect on two problems which have come to me recently in my own constituency. Both concern cases with decisions pending before the Court of Justice. The first relates to a large suspension bridge and whether or not tolls on it should be subject to VAT. The decision could have huge implications for our local economy. Secondly there is a lady within thirteen weeks of retirement who is desperate for news of a decision that will affect seriously her financial circumstances in old age. These are just two examples of real life problems behind delays in Europe’s system of justice. Delays in justice can mean personal difficulties and even tragedy. This is not to say that all of our own national systems of justice are perfect, but all too often they may be waiting for a preliminary ruling from the European Court. Amongst the statistics there is a worrying upward trend in the time taken to deal with preliminary references. This should not be taken as a criticism of the Court or of its staff, rather of the Court’s structure and its lack of resources in a growing European Union. The proposals in this report are very welcome as an interim palliative, but Europe is a legal construction, its courts are central to its proper functioning. In the face of coming enlargement the IGC must deal with fundamental reform and restructuring of the court system. Otherwise we will all, as elected representatives, be faced with more and more clamour from our citizens who are not getting access to quick and effective justice. IN THE CHAIR: MR ONESTAVice-President

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, I should like to begin by praising the rapporteur for a really good piece of work. At the moment, we see how more and more EU countries are introducing road tolls, often backed by different technical systems. This is one of the main points I believe we should emphasise, namely that we must not focus exclusively upon one technical system, such as satellite navigation, but, on the contrary, permit different systems that are interoperable. It is enough to look at the situation in Germany, which has come down unilaterally in favour of a particular system which is patently not operating as intended. That is not an example we should follow at EU level. In connection with the German system, there was also another problem, namely that there were not enough boxes available, with the result that hauliers in different countries did not have the opportunity to have these boxes installed. There is also something else we must avoid in the future. I think that, in order to be focused upon its users, the system must also ensure, at a purely technical level, that hauliers and their drivers only have to install a single box in each vehicle. This would ease the administrative burden for the transport companies, and it would also mean greater road safety, for drivers would only have to concentrate on one piece of equipment. It is also important that users be guaranteed access to a coherent network through a single contract relating to the overall network of roads involving tolls. Together, these are all aspects it is very important to bear in mind in connection with the reading of this report. I therefore hope we obtain an agreement that puts users in the driving seat. I also hope you have noticed that I have left a little time for those who, unlike myself, have exceeded their speaking time.

Political group: GUE-NGL
The Bonn Declaration was most welcome in that it committed the European Union and the United States of America to a full and equal partnership, and of course the EU and the US are both partners and competitors, particularly in trade matters. It is important to stress the scale of the economic relationship currently worth USD 2 billion a day, but where there is competition there will inevitably be some areas of conflict and friction, and part of the nature of the relationship is to try and contain that friction. I would like to quote from a Commission document about how to avoid or minimise new trade disputes. It says that we should consult before legislating, negotiate before litigating, compensate before retaliating and comply at any rate. That might be a lofty target but one worth aiming for. I want to comment too on Commissioner Patten's very welcome statement that he did not see any connection between being European and anti-Americanism. He is absolutely right. To be European is also to encompass a generous inclusivity about people's notions very different from our own. There are of course important outstanding trade disputes, the foreign sales tax one in particular, and it was worrying, to say the least, that President Clinton's last speech before he left office contained some barely veiled threats about the future of the Airbus deal and a possible dispute. Finally I want to commend the part of the resolution that welcomes the Transatlantic Legislative Dialogue on which this Parliament has set such great store, and I very much hope we want that to continue and be strengthened as part of a constructive and good-tempered dialogue.

Political group: PSE
Thank you very much, Commissioner. Today I have found out that a council of war sentenced the person who killed this aid worker to thirty years in prison and has awarded compensation of EUR 40 000 to the family of the victim. It does represent progress that there has been an emergency council of war; however, Commissioner, you know – and I imagine this has been expressed by the people who have been in Guinea – that human rights are still being violated all the time, despite certain prisoners having been freed, and that this situation is unfortunately constant in this small country which has few citizens. They continue to live essentially in terror, and although the country is one of the world’s richest, thanks to oil, the population, as you know, receives no education or health care and lives in poverty. Therefore, Commissioner, despite the fact that you have said that there have been improvements, I would ask you to continue to demand a system of guarantees which make it possible for these citizens to live with the minimum degree of human rights.

Political group: PSE