GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Portugal is synonymous with a high-quality travel industry. One hundred and sixty-nine Portuguese beaches unfurled blue flags in 2003. There were 47 in the Algarve alone, including one riverside beach. These results prove the high degree of quality and commitment shown by local authorities in their management of the coastline, particularly with regard to basic sanitation, water supply and pollution. Apart from technical and scientific improvements in water management, it behoves us not to forget one recent development. Tourism has created new recreational activities for holidaymakers. Apart from bathing, there are now activities such as surfing, windsurfing and sailing. In the Algarve, these sports are becoming more popular all the time among young people. Although these new activities are practised further out from shore, I feel that they ought to be protected under the new regime. I would argue, therefore, that the definition of ‘bather’ should be extended to include not just swimmers in the strict sense but also those taking part in water sports. Finally, I would like to draw attention to one more fact, gleaned from my own experience as a mayor. Health and water quality are important enough to justify a public information campaign. This, however, is the joint responsibility of the EU, its Member States, the regions and local authorities. Local authorities alone cannot shoulder the financial burden of ensuring that water quality remains high. That burden includes the financial losses suffered in areas where water quality temporarily falls below the required standard.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, I thank the President-in-Office of the Council for his reply. In September, Belgium’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Mr Michel, made a statement to the press in Belgium in the wake of the Nepal crisis, in which he stated that he would ask his fellow foreign affairs ministers in the Council to have the code of conduct, which is indeed not binding at the moment, transposed into national legislation. Can the President-in-Office of the Council tell me whether Mr Michel's proposal was tabled in the Council? Could he also tell me whether he considers it likely that the Council will commit to transposing the code of conduct into national legislation in each country?

Political group: Verts-ALE
It is with joy and satisfaction that I note that, in the vote referred to above, the Czech Republic received the worst result and thus a ‘Parliamentary shot across the bows’. Present-day Czech politicians must wonder why they did so badly, with 489 votes in favour, 39 votes against, and 37 abstentions. As a member of the EU/Czech Republic Joint Parliamentary Committee, I experienced, over the past four years, the Czech's intolerable arrogance at first hand. Over and over again, I appealed to Prague to meet us halfway in the matter of the wretched Beneš decrees, and in this way draw a line under the unpleasantnesses of the past. On each occasion, the politicians in Prague refused categorically to do so. My yes in the vote today is therefore a signal to today's young Czechs, who will, it may be hoped, soon be calling the political tune in Germany's neighbouring republic. I wish the present holders of political office in the Czech Republic much joy from the arguments in their own country as to why the vote in the European Parliament in Strasbourg was such a poor result for them. Perhaps it is only now that the open dialogue that Parliament has been striving for will begin.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, on a point of order, you may be aware that a number of Members were unable to take part in votes yesterday because they were delayed for seven hours at Gatwick airport. You yourself will have experienced some of the extreme difficulties faced by many Members in travelling to Strasbourg. In view of the approaching enlargement, are you satisfied that Parliament here in Strasbourg is adequately equipped for the needs of enlargement, given that Members and staff find it very difficult to get here from one of Europe's largest airports? Are you confident that those coming from parts of Europe where the transport links are not so good will be able to travel to Strasbourg? Is it not time you joined the growing number of people who think that Strasbourg is an inefficient and inappropriate place to host a Parliament of this size? I urge you to look into this as a matter of urgency. (Mixed reactions)

Political group: PPE-DE
I fully support this report and welcome its adoption by this Parliament. Adoption of this report is crucial for the approval of the general revision and simplification of Regulation (EEC) No 1408/71, which is long overdue. I support the rapporteur, who has worked hard to achieve a positive conclusion of this dossier at first reading in order to facilitate the coordination of social security schemes. It is important that we continue to improve transparency and clarity and strengthen the legal protection of citizens. It is particularly important that we continue to remove barriers affecting the mobility of workers within the Union. Ease of mobility is needed if we are ever to achieve the proclaimed objectives of the Lisbon Summit.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, following a rather long and difficult negotiation, in the end we are going to have a Directive which, as well as being ambitious, is realistic and, above all, capable of being applied, because the dates and quantitative objectives set in it are well-balanced. I would therefore like warmly to congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Corbey, and thank her for her work and the flexibility she has shown in order to reach this agreement. This agreement has not been at all easy because, as well as the long and controversial debates we have held in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy we have been faced with additional legal problems, resulting from the judgment of the Court of Justice in relation to what is understood by ‘recovery’. I would also like to thank all the Members who have made valuable contributions to improving this Directive and, in particular, the chairperson of the committee, Mrs Jackson. The work has truly been worth the effort, because the packaging Directive will have enormous consequences for the various economic actors involved: local councils, collection systems, companies producing packaging materials, the industry, etc. I would also like to make a particular appeal to consumers, who make up a sector which is essential to the system, to cooperate by taking all packaging to green points. Re-use, recycling and recovery are three options for managing waste. Each has its advantages and disadvantages, but I believe we must support all three because of what they have in common: any of them is always going to be better than depositing waste in dumps. With regard to the concept of prevention, I believe that, without leaving it aside, we must be flexible, particularly in the case of the agri-foodstuffs industry which – let us not forget – is the biggest user of packaging, since in this field we must balance environmental objectives with the strictest possible food safety criteria. Furthermore, the packaging-producing industry is already making huge efforts to improve the design of their products for the simple reason that it means a reduction in costs and, at the end of the day, that is a competitive advantage. As the European Commission has acknowledged, certain Member States will have more difficulty complying with the Directive for historical reasons relating to lack of infrastructures, low population density or, simply, consumer habits. In this regard, I am delighted to have participated in the search for a solution accessible to all. Portugal, Greece, Ireland and the new Member States are going to have longer time limits for complying with this directive. I am aware that some of these countries are already making huge efforts and I am sure that they will achieve the objectives set. Finally, I trust that the problems stemming from the imprecise definition, following the judgment, of what is considered recovery will be urgently resolved for the good of everybody.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, European defence policy is at present being drafted, and different countries are involved in the task. There are Member States in NATO and there are countries which are not in NATO. Mr President-in-Office, do you believe that the European Union can frame a defence policy that would be independent of NATO, or will all the new arrangements be in harmony with NATO’s basic structures?

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, I am sorry to hear Mrs Klamt’s words. I wanted to begin by congratulating the Commission and Commissioner Vitorino on this proposal which seems to me to be very complete, well constructed and timely, coming almost a year after the Tampere Summit. We must clarify today in this Parliament whether we want the immigrants and refugees who live amongst us to do so legally with their families, giving them the opportunity to live a normal life and to integrate fully into our society, or whether we are going to continue to feed the myth that they are provisional co-citizens whose final destiny is to return to the hypothetical homes they came from. This issue is so important that we must make an effort to reach a consensus. All of our groups were in agreement in committee, apart from the PPE Group. I would like us today to send a message to the people who live amongst us that they can do so with their right to live as a family recognised. Mr President, this is the intention of my group, although I would also like to ask the Commission, on behalf of my group, to think twice about one aspect included in the current directive. We have also applied these rules we are debating to people who are under alternative protection. Unfortunately, the European Union does not have homogenous criteria. There is no harmonised asylum policy. Therefore, there are very different situations in many countries, and on this minor point I would agree with Mrs Klamt. It is not a question of rejecting these people – they have the right to live as families – but of the Commission thinking twice about it and of their being subject to a future directive which would include persons under temporary and alternative protection, while we await the future harmonisation of the Union’s asylum policy. Otherwise, I congratulate the Commission and I hope that it receives the full support of this House.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, in my idea of what constitutes democracy, there are votes which should be expressed publicly. (Loud applause) The secret ballot is reserved for certain appointments, but when democrats are not capable of stating publicly their choices concerning essential political appointments, when they call for secret ballots on points of procedure, even though they claim to be defending transparency, then all I can say is that that is not my idea of democracy, or of transparency, or of a sense of political responsibility. I want to say publicly, here and now, that I shall be voting against the amendments tabled by those advocates of transparency – a strange transparency indeed! (Loud applause)

Political group: PSE
Mr President, the Turkish legal system is based on the idea that collective order and security very definitely take precedence over individual human rights. I am very well aware of the views of the Ankara public prosecutor. I have heard terms of this kind from his own lips; no wonder, then, that in such a system a raid on the human rights bureau in Ankara should be seen by the perpetrators as normal. That is how life is lived there. The Minister for Justice has expressed regret for the raid, and that is, of course, all very fine and good, but the problem is whether he actually has the power over the public prosecutor to prevent the latter simply carrying on without further ado. Is this not once again the so-called deep state, with its generals and pashas, that rumbles through everything, as it did with the attempts of Prime Minister Erdogan to find a solution to the Cyprus problem, the restoration of the ban on HADEP and the continuing detention of Mrs Zana who, as a Sakharov prizewinner, has very special symbolic value for us? Such behaviour amounts to downright defiance of the norms and values of the European Union. The views of the deep state on good administration differ markedly from those in the European Union. Successive examples of this can be found in every embassy of Member States. Mr Ceyhun points out that it is the opponents of the European Union in Turkey who are in favour of such damaging acts. I do not believe that there are people in Turkey, and certainly not amongst the pashas and the generals, who do not want to join the European Union. This is because there is status and all kinds of other benefits attached to it. They do want to join, but they want Turkey to join the European Union on their terms. This we must prevent at all costs and make clear to the citizens and to every person of goodwill in Turkey that we do not want that. I think that it must also be made clear to the Turkish public where we stand, that there are conditions attached to accession and that whenever there is a violation it will be said over and over again that we do not accept that, so that the deep state knows that in the European Union there is no future for its way of thinking and acting. I hope that Commissioner Verheugen can make this visible in Turkey too, possibly through measures relating to the support for human rights organisations in that country.

Political group: PPE-DE
At first reading, the Council regrettably chose not to accept some of the proposals that we had tabled and that Parliament had adopted which sought to achieve better protection for employees in the event of the insolvency of their employer, amending the 1980 directive to enable it to cope with the frequent cases of insolvency in the European Union. Although the Council position already represents an improvement on the previous situation, it was necessary to insist on the amendments designed to include, in the scope of the directive, new forms of work and new labour relations and the directive’s extension to cover severance pay, as laid down in ILO Convention No 173(6). The Council position remained set on cases provided for in national legislation. Although we voted for the amendments tabled in the report, we are bound to regret the fact that it did not go further, and specifically that it opted for reaching a compromise solution with the Commission, which will carry out an in-depth study and hold a joint public hearing with Parliament as early as this year on the situation of workers in light of new forms of labour relations. Pack report (A5-0132/2002)

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, I should simply like to point out that there is a slight error in the Portuguese version of Amendment No 20: there is a missing semicolon! (Laughter) A missing semicolon in Portugal is an extremely serious matter and I would draw this to the attention of the services. (Laughter)

Political group: PPE-DE
With the argument that we need to simplify the implementation of the Dublin Convention, the Council is trying to revive previous attempts to restrict the fundamental rights of citizens of non-EU countries by means of the creation of a mechanism for collecting fingerprints controlled by a central unit, which will cover not only refugees and asylum seekers but all citizens of third countries who are illegally present. The Council’s endeavour to address fundamental rights by including children aged 14 and above is therefore blind. But even with the minor amendments that have been approved by the European Parliament, including a minimum age limit of 18 years and a limit on the number of comparisons made of fingerprints to prevent more opportunities for error, this proposal that aims to create a Fortress Europe, closed to other citizens is unacceptable. As the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market states, in normal circumstances, fingerprints will only be allowed to be taken from criminals or from individuals suspected of having committed crimes and not from asylum seekers, refugees or citizens of third countries who are illegally present within the territory or on a Member State’s border. Thus, the protection of the fundamental rights of the individuals concerned requires that we do not proceed with the creation of a central control system for personal data because, in principle, none of those people may be treated as a criminal or be suspected of being one. To make the situation worse, no measures for monitoring and protecting data are being proposed, which leaves open the question of how we can guarantee the implementation of effective sanctions which will serve as a deterrent against actions which are not authorised by the central unit. This is the reason I have voted against this report.

Political group: GUE-NGL
The European delegation to the WTO negotiations claims to be the defender of the interests of Europe. In fact, it is merely the representative of the most powerful industrialists and financial groups in the European Union, rivals to the American or Japanese trusts in systematically bleeding the planet dry, but all concerned exclusively with increasing their profits at the expense of the workers in their own countries and peoples in poor countries. In mentioning the “workers’ fundamental rights” and “protection” of these, particularly in poor countries, the Schwaiger report introduces a touch of cynicism to all the rest. But what of the protection of workers, particularly against the tragedy of unemployment, even in the richest countries of the European Union, precisely those which would easily have adequate means to eradicate unemployment if their governments were not concerned primarily by the profits of big business and by making owners and shareholders wealthy? As for the claim of being interested in the working conditions and inhuman wages in underdeveloped countries, this is pure hypocrisy. Any number of multinationals who employ a workforce with a practically zero wage, without the advantage of any form of social protection, in Africa or Asia, have their headquarters in France, Germany or the United Kingdom. Instead of forcing these multinationals to comply with minimum social legislation, they are going to be content with inviting a few ILO officials as observers to the WTO negotiations. We shall not vote in favour of the proposed report, nor shall we amend it, since it is the capitalist organisation of the economy, with or without the WTO, which basically is not amenable to amendment.

Political group: GUE-NGL
I hope you will bear with me. This is not a point of order, but I believe it is an historic announcement. As the House is probably aware, there have been recent announcements by David Trimble of the Ulster Unionist Party and Gerry Adams of Sinn Fein. Both have come out with statements which are committed to the peace process and to decommissioning for Northern Ireland. I am sure that the President will want to write on behalf of the European Union to congratulate all parties concerned on their actions, their courage and their determination to carry the peace process and decommissioning forward, and I am sure that you will agree that peace in Northern Ireland offers hope to everyone everywhere.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, there are two messages coming from this House today. Firstly, the rather modest compromise resolution drafted by an all-party group which, if I were a member of the forces serving currently in Afghanistan – and I think particularly of the British forces – would give me very scant comfort. The other message comes from the President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Verhofstadt, and deals with a rather more robust approach to the current operations in that area and also his more forward thinking approach towards the future of Afghanistan. Of course this House must have compromise resolutions and must, so far as possible, be united. Europe must not act at the level of the lowest common denominator but accept that in politics, as in war, there must be room for leadership. Today, our resolution does not reflect the sort of leadership which is available for the people of Afghanistan through their exiled king. Our resolution does not reflect the fact that in Peshawar today there is an enormous meeting taking place of those seeking – including the moderate Taliban – the restoration of democracy in that country. I believe – as do many of my colleagues – that the king, whom I had the pleasure of meeting on 21 September and whom Mr Solana met only last weekend, does have a role in the future of Afghanistan. He introduced democracy to that country in 1964: free elections, a free media, universities, hospitals; he introduced women into politics. It is that hope of the restoration of democracy in Afghanistan and the ending of international terrorism which must be the focus of our attention.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, allow me to pick up where my colleague Mr Gawronski left off, namely the acceptance of Europe among the people of the various countries seeking to join the European Union. It is not only Poland; other countries, such as the Czech Republic, also keep their enthusiasm for the European Union in check. I should like to point out that the Commission’s progress report on the Czech Republic refers to a medium-sized town in the Czechia where a fence has been built down a street to separate the Czechs from the Romas. That is hardly progress. I have been there twice, I have spoken to the mayor, I said the fence must go and what happened? The tabloid press of Europe is calling this fence a wall, as if it were not only the Berlin wall but the great wall of China. It has been so blown up that the people there are, understandably, extremely angry because they assume that there is sauce for the goose and sauce for the gander in the European Union. We have one set of rules for ourselves, and we are far from whiter than white, and we have another set of rules for applicant countries and we expect everything of them which we ourselves fail to deliver. When we in the European Union take a look around us, at ethnic conflicts and terrorist attacks, I think that, if the boot were on the other foot, for example, if the Czech Republic were already in the Union, then it would say to a certain Member State: friend, if you do not get your house in order, then you must wait another twenty years before you become a Member State. I simply mean we should make sure that the people are not put off. The point is, we do not need to get on with the politicians in the applicant countries, but with the people. That is all that counts.

Political group: PPE-DE
I wish particularly to make some remarks about my reasons for voting on the strategy for the internal market but before I do that could I also say that I voted against the procedural motion to defer voting on the fishing matter because I shall be absolutely unable to visit Strasbourg in two weeks time and would very much have wished to express my solidarity with the share fishermen in Scotland, particularly in the islands and remote parts. In relation to the strategy for the interior market, I was very glad that Amendment No 1 was carried. My distinguished colleague Mrs Echerer, put this forward in our group to favour the position of artists who have to travel throughout the Community, earning in many different countries. I was very glad that the Commission showed willingness to take our point on board. Finally, in the debate last night on the whole of that resolution, I drew Mr Bolkenstein’s attention to the points in the report which say we must remove barriers which are preventing the implementation of the internal market. I drew attention yet again to the problem of foreign language lecturers in Italian universities whose rights have been denied despite three judgments at the highest level in Europe. I hope the Commission, as Mr Bolkenstein indicated last night, is pressing vigorously ahead to prevent this injustice. Thank you.

Political group: Verts-ALE