GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
This afternoon, this House agreed by a large majority on an extension, by two years, of the LIFE programme. This extension will ensure policy continuity until a new approach is developed in view of the new financial perspectives. When the extension of the LIFE programme was first discussed, the Court of Auditors told the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy that an audit had been carried out in eight Member States. This had apparently revealed that, when private entities use European aid to purchase sites for nature reserves, there are insufficient guarantees that these sites continue to be well managed when the subsidy period expires. It was unable to give us any specific examples, however. The suggestion by the Court of Auditors that private entities be excluded henceforth from EU subsidies for purchasing nature reserves was unable to count on support from this House, therefore, which I think is a very good thing. The Court of Auditors is of course entitled to make suggestions to us. We can on no account tolerate misuse, but this does not mean that private entities that are functioning properly should be hit. We cannot and must not leave the thousands of volunteers in the European Union who devote themselves selflessly to the management of nature reserves out in the cold. On the contrary, we must encourage instead of discourage them. I am particularly pleased that I have been able to do my bit towards ensuring that properly functioning environmental organisations can continue to obtain European aid for purchasing nature-reserve sites in the future. - Boogerd-Quaak report (A5-0271/2004)

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, the claims made by Mr Podestà and Mr Fiori seem to me to be totally unfounded. They claim that the Rules of Procedure have been breached because the Committee on Petitions did not give its opinion. This is a completely unfounded allegation. The same Committee on Petitions sent us the first petition pursuant to Article 7 of the Treaty so that we could look into it. The Conference of Presidents authorised the Committee on Citizens’ Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs to draw up this initiative report: it is a political report and not a legislative one. We were sent two further petitions for information, but we are not deciding on these. We decide independently and the committees to be consulted were determined by the Conference of Presidents, which called on the Committee on Citizens’ Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs to carry out this report. It said, ‘Draw up this report and listen to committees x, y and z,’ not the Committee on Petitions. At most this will be about withdrawing approval of these petitions that were sent inappropriately but no mistake has been made in terms of the Rules of Procedure; and I believe that the Presidency could assess this without needing to refer anything back to committee. The Committee on Citizens’ Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs was simply appointed, pursuant to Rule 130a of the Rules of Procedure, to check something that is obvious: to see if a tenth of committee Members support each of the 330 amendments tabled with the intention of stonewalling. Clearly, since they were tabled by the Group of the European People’s Party , the amendments will have the support of a tenth of the Members and, therefore, having carried out this check, we will have fulfilled the task given to us by the President. (Applause)

Political group: PSE
Mr President, Commissioner, I really am appalled by your reply, because you said absolutely nothing about the central issue of how we want to achieve or can guarantee freedom of choice for the consumer. You said absolutely nothing about how we are to handle Parliament's resolution at first reading on a limit value of 0.5% for labelling. That is precisely what the Council is currently negotiating. With your planned limit value for seed, this value is not achievable. You know that, which is why I should now like to ask you to tell us what conclusions you intend to draw from this vote by Parliament. Is it in fact that you want to press ahead, that you want to bring about a fait accompli, that you want, as it were, to give the seed industry a Christmas present? I think you should state here today how you intend to handle Parliament's resolution at first reading on this regulation. You said just now that contamination is unavoidable. That is as incorrect as it is unacceptable! In saying this, you are setting yourself up as the mouthpiece of the genetic engineering industry because that is what the lobby claims, but it is not true. Tests in Europe have shown that there is no contamination of seed of any consequence and in Austria we even have purity requirements for seed and I think that is exactly what we need. We need freedom of choice for consumers and, in order to guarantee it, we need purity requirements. We should not just throw in the towel in the face of contamination when, with the right policy, there is no contamination, because products or seeds which cause such widespread contamination cannot be released. So what we need is freedom of choice for consumers and, please, rather than giving Christmas presents to the seed industry, give us a timetable today. We want to know what the Commission is planning to do and if it really is prepared to accept Parliament's democratic resolution and wait until we have adopted a resolution on the Scheele Report.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, I would like to congratulate Mr Schwaiger. While stressing that we must have a WTO Millennium Round that is as comprehensive as possible so that everybody can get something out of it, there are three issues I would like to draw attention to. I am very pleased that Parliament, the Commission and the Council have highlighted animal welfare in their presentations. It is an important issue for citizens, it is an important issue for many of us here in this House and it is important that it is debated at Seattle. I think we must also learn the lessons of the multilateral agreement on investments. Yes, it will be possible for competition and investment to be dealt with at Seattle, but it is important that they are dealt with in a transparent and open way. The WTO must explain to its citizens what it is doing or it will run the risk of undermining support for free trade. It is equally important that as broad as possible a consultation is actually put in place to enable the different points of view to be heard and to be understood when we deal with competition and investment. And, thirdly, there is the dispute settlement system itself. It was an undoubted success of the Uruguay Round, but there are problems associated with it. Seattle must close those loopholes, again on the basis of transparency and greater certainty about the rights and obligations of all those involved in the dispute settlement system. That will offer us a key potential for unlocking world trade. In conclusion we must never lose sight of the fact that globalisation is very much about human issues, it is about standards of living, the environment, cultural, moral and ethical issues. Some fear the WTO, some fear globalisation, some fear the advance of growth, markets, technology and science. But I believe by working together openly with the common goal of raising the quality of life for the whole world, we can actually confound the critics of globalisation and show that globalisation and liberalisation can genuinely be a decisive force for good.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should first like to thank Commissioner Lamy very much for this initiative. It is, I believe, an initiative which once again shows far-sightedness and which attempts to solve problems which we all know lie ahead before they even arise. We all know that we can only enjoy success in world trade if we offer products and services which are also actually bought. Hence my question: thanks to trade on the Internet we have now attained a very high level of activity internationally in the small consignments sector. In Europe we have 18 million employers in a labour force of 250 million. Could you envisage our putting in place appropriate measures for individual small consignments up to a certain number of euros, so that this small-scale trade is also able to develop completely freely, without barriers and without excessive bureaucracy?

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, colleagues will have read in some of this morning's newspapers about the refusal of the Republic of France to recognise the extraterritorial status of the European Parliament. Apparently, the French government has refused to issue a visa to the President of the Republic of China to allow him to come to Parliament for a meeting. This is a denial of our status as a supranational Parliament, and I hope that you will be protesting to the French government about the fact that Mr Chen has not been allowed a visa. . . (Applause) – . . . and insisting that we, in the European Union, should be recognising a country which has existed as a flourishing parliamentary democracy for some 14 years and the status it must have in a world in which democracies must work together. (Applause)

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we have before us today a wide-ranging revision of the law on medicinal products in Europe. This will have an impact on the competitiveness of companies of all sizes in this sector and accordingly on a great many jobs. However, it also of course affects the entire trade, pharmacists and, last but not least, the patient. This mammoth document is, amongst other things, the result of a new strategy that the Commission has already been pursuing for several years. The volume of Community law, which currently stands at over 80 000 pages, is to be simplified and tightened up. In the case of this particular revision, a single legislative act is to be adopted, taking account of the various substantive changes required and codifying the remaining provisions. The many amendments tabled in committee and now once again in the plenary are just one indication of how difficult this undertaking is. I have enormous respect for the massive amount of work put in by the Commission and by our two rapporteurs, Mrs Grossetête and Mrs Müller, but I am genuinely concerned that we may to some extent have lost track of the overall picture, so that some apparently less important issues have not perhaps been attended to. That is why I would like to draw your attention to homeopathic medicines, not just for humans but also for animals, and I urge you to support these amendments too. The European Parliament is a co-legislator here and we need to make sure that we do our work carefully. At first reading, we still have a lot of opportunities, but we should also leave the way open for the second reading. That is why I am asking for your support, but I am also calling on the Legal Service and on our rapporteurs to check whether the final outcome is coherent. Only the future can tell whether this pharmaceutical legislation will be easier for the Member States and other stakeholders to apply because of its reduced linguistic complexity. I would like to thank everyone involved and hope that this magnum opus will be a success.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, I would like to start by congratulating Mrs Theato on her report. I think it is a first-class report which will, for the most part, be supported by my group. I just have the distinct feeling that she would have preferred to take it a little further at this stage. Judging from the discussions held over the past five or six months, this could well be the case. We all know that, in 1995, it was agreed that the Union’s financial interests should be given better protection under criminal law. But the Member States failed to cooperate. This is just a political fact about which little can be done at present, I think. It is now possible, on the basis of Article 280 of the Treaty, that the Commission will take new initiatives, and I would like to suggest to the Commission that it do this at the earliest opportunity. Unlike the previous speaker, who has now disappeared, my group is strongly in favour of a European Public Prosecutor. My colleague Jan-Kees Wiebenga, will undoubtedly take this point further because he has already published a report on the same subject matter. I think what we need is, at European level, to come up with exact definitions of fraud and irregularity as quickly as possible. I myself have been involved in the committee of inquiry on transit traffic. One of the major problems in this area was that if you do something wrong, especially when it comes to revenue of the European Union, then this will be termed an irregularity in one country and a crime in another. This, I thought, is no longer permissible, certainly not at the moment. I would like to make one general point on politics. Whatever we may say about the European elections, the low turnout is a fact. We can improve on this by punishing crime in Europe quickly, and this must be done at European level.

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, first of all, I would, of course, like to congratulate Mr Bösch on his sound and accurate report. Allow me to comment on the sore points. First of all, OLAF’s necessary independence. That means indeed that the OLAF Director will be given full autonomy and far-reaching powers to conduct investigations within all European institutions. This also means that the Commission will refrain from intervening in appointments in any shape or form. Can Commissioner Schreyer tell me how the Commission has reacted to Paragraphs 3 to 6? Second sore point: the European Public Prosecutor. We know that a change in the Treaty is needed for this. An attempt which was made, partly on the Commission’s initiative, failed in Nice. We will therefore need to continue putting pressure on the Member States. It is true that what we are asking now is not as far-reaching. Pursuant to Article 82, we want the OLAF regulation to be supplemented with a clause which provides for the appointment of a public prosecutor with powers limited to punishable offences committed by the members and staff of the European Union in respect of the budget. What are your thoughts on the matter, Commissioner Schreyer? Third sore point: the cooperation between Member States. The tobacco case in New York versus Reynolds and Philip Morris is indeed a good illustration of how the European Commission actually acts vis-à-vis tobacco giants. I am delighted that quite a few Member States, including my own country, have offered their support. In this way, we can finally extricate mafia practices from the world of the tobacco giants, practices which cost the Union many billions of euros every year. Fourth sore point: the disclosure of information. I was one of the people who rejected the framework agreement between the Commission and Parliament. I refuse to go into any further detail and I completely concur with Mr Bösch’s requirements. Finally, I regret that this entire House is haunted by a nationalistic and jingoistic ghost which is quick to take offence. We should be able to spell out in this report what went wrong in Spain in the flax case and in Italy, Belgium and Germany in the case surrounding butter which was tampered with. Consequently, my group will not be supporting the amendments which play down these matters or disguise them.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Commissioner, we were in fact discussing the matter of transition periods. I should like to ask what your position is on the wishes of Poland and the Czech Republic to introduce long transition periods for two areas of concern to them, namely the free acquisition of land, including farmland, and the freedom of establishment. These are two very fundamental points and I should like to know what the Commission or your position is on this. I also wanted to ask you what you think about linking transition periods in the Member States and the candidate countries in the sort of package deal that is constantly being discussed.

Political group: PPE-DE
Presidents of the European institutions, ladies and gentlemen, we must first of all express our support for the intense activity that the European Union has been undertaking, together with the United States, Russia and the United Nations, to prevent a war between India and Pakistan. I had the opportunity to visit the region a few weeks ago and, from the meetings I held with the parties involved, in my capacity as President of Parliament’s Delegation for relations with the countries of South Asia, I can confirm that, beyond the palpable tensions, there is also a genuine desire for peace. It is true that these two great countries have already gone to war with each other three times: twice over Kashmir and once over Bangladesh. Now, however, what we would have is not just another war, if I may put it that way, because both countries now have nuclear weapons and the ability to move them around. As Mr Ramón de Miguel stressed, the possibility of escalation can never be excluded in a military conflict. We have, therefore, been greatly encouraged by some positive developments that have taken place in recent days. On the one hand, we have the commitment given by the President of Pakistan to stop the infiltration across the line of control in Kashmir; on the other, there is India’s decision to reopen its airspace to Pakistani civil aviation, to re-establish diplomatic representation and to withdraw its battleships from the Gulf of Oman. This Monday’s news from the United States, however, linking the terrorist who was planning to manufacture a nuclear bomb with connections in Pakistan, means that we must remain extremely vigilant towards developments in that region. The world can only gain from having a European Union that is more active on the international stage. In order for this to happen, however, we must, specifically, improve the coordination of our efforts in external policy and defence, and make real progress towards having a common diplomatic service. This is the only way in which the European Union will be genuinely able to bring its influence to bear in conflict prevention.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission says it cannot cope with the ever growing number of Community programmes and their implementation with its statutory number of staff. That may be right. It means the Commission must delegate and decentralise. Various models have in the past proved unsuitable or failures. Either they were not financially transparent, like the minibudgets, or they were conducive to fraud like the TAOs, which is why Parliament demanded their abolition. Now the Commission is presenting a proposal for a regulation for the statute of so-called executive agencies, which the rapporteur, Mr Bourlanges, has just explained. I should like to congratulate him on his very detailed treatment of this proposal. I should like to underline a number of important points in his report. The Commission must provide a precise list of the tasks to be transferred, whether they are public or non-public and the type of executive agency to which they are to be transferred. Unfortunately, we do not yet have the promised handbook about that. But it must be clear that responsibility for the proper and economic execution of the transferred tasks lies with the Commission, which is subject to discharge by Parliament, which means there can be no discharge for the agencies themselves. Parliament must be provided with all the information and documents it requires for the purpose without delay. The agencies are also subject to scrutiny by the Court of Auditors and, where appropriate, also by OLAF. The Commission is also legally liable for the executive agencies, since they are not anchored in the Treaty as institutions in their own right. The agencies must be evaluated within not more than three years to check they are operating as they should. Finally, all contracts with outside agencies must be limited in time. Mr Bourlanges has just mentioned that. The framework regulation makes no provision for their term to be extended. But I think there ought to be provision for that. It is at all events important that at least 25% of executive agency staff should be seconded Commission officials in order to ensure internal supervision of administrative tasks and to see that the Commission’s responsibilities are fulfilled.

Political group: PPE-DE
As you know, I am a great admirer of yours and I am sure that you were as uncomfortable repeating your answer today as I was hearing it. I know of your own personal commitment but actually you have not given me any clear indication of what the Commission is actually going to do in the UN conference which is taking place in a couple of weeks time. Having listened to the extent of plans that the Commission has in relation to animal welfare, I can only wish that they had similar plans in relation to the welfare of children. Accepting the legal limits within which you have to work, could you in fact give me any indication that anybody from the Commission for example is going to be present at this United Nations conference in September? In what context and are they proposing to make any input into the conference?

Political group: PPE-DE
Madam representative of the Council, we have listened to Kofi Annan’s report on the most recent information regarding the referendum and we attended the 25th Conference on the support by European NGOs of the Saharaoui people a few weeks ago in the Canary Islands. The main complaint raised there was that Europe is not sufficiently involved in this issue. It is true that it supports the peace plan, it is true that it sends letters and other things, but Europe has a specific responsibility because my country, Spain, and other countries have a close connection with the current situation in the Sahara. We have listened to Abdelaziz who has described again the unsustainable situation of the Saharaoui people in the Tinduf camps. It is a situation in which they are making an enormous effort to maintain the education of their children and to feed their population, but which has already lasted more than 20 years. The referendum should have been held in 1992. It is not acceptable that now, as a result of 79 000 appeals by Morocco, it might be delayed by two more years. We cannot judge the parties equally. The Saharaouis are not hindering the referendum. It is Morocco that is making things difficult. We ask Europe to become more involved.

Political group: GUE-NGL