GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Mr President, I have voted against the Aparicio Sánchez report. The Treaty remains very controversial within Switzerland. The chance is great that it will as yet be rejected during a referendum. In Switzerland, the protection of the environment is high on the agenda and rightly so. This is why, so far they have opted for the transport of goods by rail and for banning large articulated lorries on transit roads. This is the only way of preventing more and wider motorways from being built in the Alps and of protecting mountain valley air from further pollution as a result of exhaust fumes. This has also been Austria’s standpoint in the past. But since it has become a Member of the Union, the Swiss are on their own. The Union has exerted a great deal of pressure on a small non-Member State and has, in the process, set aside the internal democratic decision taking in that country. In this way, more scope was created for a transport method which, if the environment is taken seriously, has no future. Furthermore, the scale of apportionment is being submitted to Parliament before the latter has been consulted on the agreement itself. In short, this proposal is not yet ripe for discussion and has unacceptable consequences for the environment and democracy in Switzerland. If I were Swiss, I would vote against in the referendum and as a non-Swiss, I will show my solidarity by voting against.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, the women here who are speaking on behalf of women are already in a special position. Despite this, we complain too often about a lack of appreciation. We have the opportunity of working here, but not always is our work appreciated. Today, on International Women's Day, I should like to draw attention to the millions of women who are scarcely noticed. On this International Women's Day, Amnesty International has asked that special attention be paid to violence against women, sexual violence against women, and the humiliations suffered on a daily basis. I thank you for the efforts you are prepared to make within our Institution, and I should like to ask you that we, as an Institution, send the message to the Council and the Commission that actual guarantees should be made to improve the situation of these women and stop the humiliations and exploitations. We, as development donors, carry a huge responsibility in the world, but the money invariably ends up in the pockets of the consultants rather than with the women who deserve it.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, Commissioner Byrne, I would like to start by thanking our friend, John Bowis, for his excellent work on the White Paper on food safety and, in particular, for including the various amendments tabled by different political groups. In my opinion, they enhance the original report of the Committee considerably. The establishment of an independent, high profile European Food Safety Agency is a substantial step which satisfies the need of all the citizens for guarantees on the quality and safety of food products. The neurodegenerative damage to man's central nervous system caused by the consumption of beef or veal – as has been mentioned this morning – from animals suffering from mad cow disease, the recent dioxins alert in Belgium, the high levels of pesticides and herbicides in the environment and the presence of other microbiological and chemical pollutants with potentially cancerous effects arouse in the public a strong sense of alarm and sometimes anxiety. The establishment of a European Food Safety Agency will contribute greatly to achieving a high level of protection of citizens' health. I would like to end by thanking all the political groups – the Group of the , the Group of the , the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party and the Group of the – for accepting a joint amendment initially tabled by Mr Fiori and myself which gives greater meaning to the very existence of the European authority. It must genuinely be a centre for coordinating the network of national agencies which, in turn, must activate and coordinate a network of centres of excellence for food safety at the level of the individual regions. The purpose of this network of laboratories will be to monitor on a continual, daily basis, the quality and safety of food products – exactly as Mrs Roth-Behrendt said just now – and I agree with this approach. The network must be as close to the citizens as possible and, in this way, their faith will be restored in the European national institutions. (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would first of all like to thank our rapporteur for the very complete nature of his report. It contains absolutely everything we may wish to find, and so it is a pleasure to read and support it. I would like to take this opportunity to stress that we have made women the emblem of the oppression of the Afghan people. We have made women the emblem of the fight against the Taliban. Will we make women the emblem of the reconstruction of Afghanistan? That is not certain and therefore – as was said on comparing the situation in Afghanistan with that in Iraq just now – at times of war or liberation, in certain countries, the issue of women arises and becomes particularly acute. In this regard, the situation of Iraqi women is alarming. So why do we not focus on the issue of women today in Afghanistan? Commissioner, the Committee on Women's Rights and Equal Opportunities has had an exchange of letters with you in relation to the attention paid to the issue of women within the framework of reconstruction and in relation to the proportion of aid earmarked by the European Union for this issue. We wanted 20%. I realise that this is enormous and that the figure is perhaps rather arbitrary. In fact, it appears that 2% is allocated to this chapter. Mainstreaming, above all in the field of health, certainly plays its role to the full, and so we are not going to talk about figures. Having said that, what really amazes me, as well as the scant importance attached to the issue of women, is above all the absence of an education dossier in the Commission's work and in the budget lines proposed. Everybody knows that the issue of education, and in particular the education of girls, is essential within the context of women as an emblem of reconstruction. That was the first comment I wanted to make. The second is that we are certainly very happy with the mention of the principle of equality between men and women in the Constitution. We ourselves are fighting, in this House, for this principle to be present in the European Constitution. It follows that this issue does not only arise over in Afghanistan, but here as well. We are very well aware, here, that a principle is not sufficient, that it needs to be applied. We are happy with what has just happened in Morocco in relation to women's rights, but we are waiting for it to be applied. The same is clearly true for Afghanistan as it is for us.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, we really would like to believe the assurances given by Mr Sasi and Mr Lamy on Europe’s aim in Seattle to limit the harmful effects of further liberalisation without rules on multilateral trade under the usual stars and stripes flag of globalisation. We would like to believe them, but bitter experience prevents us. Take, for example, Mr Lamy’s predecessor, Sir Leon Brittan, whose commitments in this Parliament to oppose the American steamroller were often disregarded – just think of the case of Helms­Burton and the WTO. We realise that times have changed radically, and that awareness accompanied by protests is spreading across the world and that the slogan ‘what is good for big business is good for the world at large’ is no longer shouted from the rooftops. Let us hope that what we have heard today is not just a public relations reaction, a placebo, or a tranquilliser. (Applause)

Political group: GUE-NGL
The Danish Social Democrats have voted in favour of improved European rules governing safety at sea. We have voted in favour of increasing the number of inspections, of refusing all ships sailing with blacklisted flags access to EU ports and of requiring all new ships to be fitted with black boxes, as they are called. Many accidents involving pollution could have been avoided by means of better safety. We have seen all too many accidents in the last couple of years. There was the loss of the tanker, Erika, off the Brittany coast in December 1999, resulting in considerable oil pollution, and the loss of the Italian chemical tanker, Ievoli Sun. Most recently, we have seen an extensive oil spill in the Baltic. The oil spill in the Baltic could have been avoided. Better European rules were needed. The ship owners do not think that a black box has anything to do with safety. However, that is not the case. A black box is very useful in the investigation after two ships have collided, as happened, for example, in the Baltic. If we become better at discovering the causes of accidents, we also become better at preventing them. We cannot wait for international rules in the IMO. The EU must take the lead in the IMO by adopting better rules. We cannot compromise on safety. We must have safety so that fish, birds and people can use the sea without being covered in oil and chemicals.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, if I may, I would like to say a few words on this issue, although I do not belong to the Italian , because, like many Members of other nationalities and from other groups, such as Mrs Boogerd-Quaak, I have been concerned about this issue. The Charter of Fundamental Rights states that plurality is essential to the functioning of democracy. What this House has observed is an undeniably increasing unease amongst large sectors of information professionals and large sectors of the public with regard to the information they receive through the media. The concentration of private media organisations in a few hands and the misuse of the public media by public authorities, by governments, are the two central concerns in this field. So this is even worse when both concerns come together, or when a political position and a business interest in the media coincide. Community legislation, Mr President, should take account of this need for plurality and should have instruments for actively defending it. This is what this House proposes in the report by Mrs Boogerd-Quaak, whom I would like to thank for her effort and patience. Mr President, I believe that the Commission and the Member States should study these proposals and accept them or, at least, tell us what they think of them. I believe this would be well received by this House and by the citizens. I believe, Mr President, that the Committee on Citizens’ Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, until the day it voted on this report in committee, voted and worked as it has done over the last five years, that is to say, in a reasonable and sensible way, listening – something which I believe is not very common in this Parliament today – listening to each others arguments. This is going to be my final speech in this plenary, because I have chosen not to return in the next Parliament and I would like to thank the Chairman of the committee, Jorge Hernández Mollar, for the way in which he has led the committee to date and also on this extremely difficult issue. To return to the issue we are dealing with, I do not wish to end without saying – and this is the fundamental issue – that the citizens, Mr President – and they have demonstrated this in recent days in my country, in Spain – when they believe that information is subject to intolerable manipulation, react. I am therefore optimistic in this area. I hope that the institutions can act in the way the citizens expect us to act.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, I was told they would be sending me a technician, but he must be coming from Brussels because still nobody has come to help sort out my problem. I have been trying to vote from the beginning but the card and the device are still not working.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, unfortunately, the international solution to the problem of how the greenhouse effect is to be handled is a long time in coming. I think it is very disheartening indeed that, after Kyoto, there is only one country, a small island in the South Pacific, which has ratified the Kyoto agreement. Now, it is also a reality, and not only in statistics and in the world of conference venues, that emissions must be reduced and the greenhouse effect mitigated. Just as the resolution says, I believe that now is the time for the EU to really show the way and to dare to move forwards, to leave the reluctant and sluggish United States behind it and, together with others, to try to ratify the Kyoto agreement. I think it is time for the EU to take the initiative and do this. I hope that the present resolution, which I think is very good indeed, will be of use in this work in preparation for the COP 6 Conference. I should also like to thank Commissioner Wallström and Representative of the Council Hassi for what they said, because I thought this was extremely hopeful. If it were they who were to have their way, I think things would get much better, for we are in fact playing roulette with our future; and the future has already shown itself to have arrived, what with all the disasters that have occurred in recent years. I believe that we must use political will in order to reduce emissions and utilise the renewable energy sources which do, in fact, exist. It is not a case of our having to wait for these resources to appear, rather, they already exist. It is just a question of using political will and ensuring that they are cost-effective and competitive.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, the European Commission’s proposal amending the 1997 Directive on opening up the Community’s postal services to competition was justified and expected. It was justified because it is in keeping with the logic of the founding Treaties of the European Union which prioritise the establishment of the internal market through the free movement of goods and services in a competitive environment. Justified too, since 1990, by the positions successively adopted by the European Councils devoted to this sector. Justified, finally, by the Lisbon European Council which, a few months ago, asked for this process to be speeded up. It was expected, too, because the Commission was behindhand in implementing the commitments specified in the 1997 Directive. However, the European Commission’s and Commissioner Bolkestein’s proposals have unleashed quite a commotion. These proposals were logical enough, however. What an outcry, though! The compromise proposed in Mr Ferber’s report lags way behind the European Commission’s reasonable proposal, which is very modest – too modest, I fear – given the need for modernisation of the European economy. And when, this morning, I see the whole of the European left wing congratulating Mr Ferber, I remain very sceptical about this compromise. At this rate, it will be 60 years before the internal market has been completed in the area of postal services. What temerity, but, above all, what a delay! I cannot therefore help but draw a parallel with the outcome of the recent Nice European Council. In the run-up to Nice, there were great proposals and noble ambitions. At the Nice Summit itself there were great speeches but, at the end of the day, little was achieved. In the same way, the great flights of rhetoric, here in this debate, on the need to build the new Europe do little to conceal the faint-heartedness and conservatism that exist. All we can now do is hope that, one day, we shall be able to move on from the present stasis and give real impetus to the European project by overcoming the various forms of self-aggrandising corporatism.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, as Mr Khanbhai’s report indicates very clearly, five million people die each year basically from these three contagious diseases and ten thousand people die each day in Africa. This seems to me to be a silent genocide that is hardly mentioned in the international press. It seems to me that some of the proposals in the report are very good, in the sense that these deaths will not be eradicated unless basic health services are available in each one of those countries and unless, as other Members have said, there is access to the treatments, to the medicines which can put an end to these illnesses. At present, they are not available. Therefore, the proposal for a Commission plan and also the proposal that we contribute to an international fund to fight against these diseases seems right to us. However, I believe that we have to look into the deeper causes. The rapporteur rightly indicates in paragraph 13 of the resolution the fact that demanding structural changes of these countries sometimes prevents them from using sufficient public funds for the health services. It is an infernal vicious circle, because unless there are sufficient resources for these basic health services, for improving the people’s quality of life, for them to have access to housing, food and work, it will be difficult to eradicate these diseases. It is a vicious circle that causes a very large part of the population of the Third World countries to be in this situation. I believe, Mr President, that prevention, better quality of life for these people, access to medicines and access to a basic health service, as the report proposes, are essential elements for a solution. The rapporteur also points out very clearly that it is necessary to increase development aid. It is already more than twenty years since the United Nations proposed that 0.7% of the GDP should be allocated to development. Today, only a few Nordic countries in Europe attain that 0.7%. The majority of European countries do not reach 0.7%. Some, like mine, do not give 0.25%. It is deplorable, because this development aid is vital precisely for these populations to be able to access basic health services. I would like to end, Mr President, by recalling the multiplier effect that the participation of women may have in each of these programmes. As a member of the delegation for relations with the countries of Central America and Mexico, I was involved in projects financed by the European Union and I could see how the participation of native women in that zone had a multiplier effect, because women can help their daughters and their fellow women to learn. Therefore, the participation of women in these plans to eradicate these diseases is fundamental. IN THE CHAIR : MR COLOM I NAVALVice-President

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, I should like to ask that in future the votes should be held at the time indicated in the order of business, because then it would be possible for Members to be here.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, unlike the rapporteur, who spoke earlier, I believe that the European employment strategy has played a major part in combating unemployment thus far and that it has had a positive effect on national labour market policies – not in all the Member States, of course, but certainly in some. Then, because of the ambitious goals we set ourselves, the Lisbon Summit was a decisive step, with the goals being updated each year by specific indicators, just as the Commission’s assessment of the national plans and the respective recommendations are a point of reference and an incentive to follow the example of those countries which are more successful than others in obtaining positive results by means of a proactive policy involving the social partners at all levels. Each year, the European Parliament has consistently succeeded in its resolutions in finding the right balance between flexibility and security and putting economic policy, employment policy and social policy on an equal footing. Now, in the face of the new generation of guidelines proposed by the Commission, which seek, as has been said, to achieve three objectives – to bring the employment rate further into line with the Lisbon objectives, to improve the quality of jobs and to promote a labour market which is open to socially vulnerable groups – it is a little surprising that the rapporteur proposed in committee and is proposing once again in the form of amendments in the House a series of instruments – reducing taxation across the board, recourse to what is known as ‘minor work’, the introduction of excessive flexibility – which are incompatible with improving job quality, investment in human resources or effective reconciliation of family and professional life which is not detrimental in terms of security. I feel that these instruments serve the purposes of the ideological debates taking place in some of the Member States – Italy, for example – rather than stimulating and coordinating the Union. This line was partially adjusted in committee and the result is more balanced, and that is why, as has been said, we do not support the amendments. I would like to end with a comment. Mrs Bastos rightly upheld the paragraph of the resolution which calls for greater cooperation between universities and research centres. It is a shame that her group has tabled an amendment seeking to replace cooperation with competition.

Political group: PSE
Madam President-in-Office of the Council, in July this year, at the start of the Belgian Presidency, I submitted a question to the Council, to be answered in writing, on statements made by Mr Javier Solana, the person responsible for foreign and security policy in the European Union, in relation to the United Nations Peace Plan, the future of the Western Sahara and the referendum. Now, in December, with the Belgian Presidency about to draw to a close, I am still waiting to receive an official answer from the Council. Although it is public knowledge and a well-known fact, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, that an official answer was circulated in the United Nations in the month of October – which was even the cause of a diplomatic incident between various representatives of the Member States – the question I am asking is this: when can I have my answer? Please, before you leave us, can you give me this political Christmas present.

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, this debate has shown that a lot more would be necessary than we have incorporated into our report. Budget policy, trade policy, tax policy and competition policy have been mentioned. Everywhere, in fact, there is a need for reform; to that extent, Parliament was very focused. I nonetheless think that we ought to be as ambitious as the Commission and carry out a further two improvements tomorrow. The latter I am happy to take up – a duly facilitated revision of the second part of the newly divided Treaties and also a clause concerning strengthened cooperation in a Europe with 27 or 30 States. I also hope that this will obtain a majority in the House tomorrow. Lastly, I should like to thank the Commission whose demands are almost identical with those of Parliament. Now, it is a question of conducting a public debate with the governments but also with the populations of Europe so that we might also implement the results at the Intergovernmental Conference in the year 2000. I would like to thank everybody who has contributed to this task.

Political group: PSE