GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Mr President, the enlargement of the European Union from 2004 constitutes an historic milestone in the construction of Europe, something that we all sincerely welcome, for several reasons. First, because it symbolises the reconciliation of two parts of the same continent that were divided for more than half a century, until little more than a decade ago. Second, because this is the greatest enlargement in the history of the European Union, with the number of Member States almost doubling and a one-third increase in its population and territory. Third, because it encompasses countries that until recently lived under a state-run economy, which are now experiencing the painful but necessary phase of re-structuring their economies and which have a relatively low average per capita income. Fourthly, because most of the new countries still have a very large agricultural sector in comparison to the current European Union. It is in this context that I should like to emphasise two aspects: - firstly, aid must be dedicated to these countries; Community aid, financial aid and technical aid, in order to enable them to speed up their process of economic recovery and development. We must also bear in mind, however, that some regions of the current European Union of 15 are also very poor, and hence the European Union cannot at the same time abandon the policy of economic and social cohesion that it has been pursuing for these countries for some years; - secondly, it must be noted that doubling the number of farmers, with the accession of Romania and Bulgaria, will require the common agricultural policy to be vastly simplified, and will also require a reduction in aid for all farmers, both future and present, following the new funding limits for the CAP laid down by the Brussels European Council of 25 October. The European Union must, therefore, take the proposal to reform the CAP recently put forward by its Commissioner for Agriculture seriously, in order to lay down a better future for farmers, both in the current Union and in the Union of the future.

Political group: PPE-DE
Madam President, I should like to point out, with respect to yesterday's minutes, that Dr Ganzert, the lawyer detained in Nicaragua, has now been allowed to leave, and to thank you for everything you did to bring this about.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, special attention deserves to be paid to the European Parliament’s first report on the export of arms since the Member States adopted a Code of Conduct on this matter in 1998. If the European Union’s action beyond its borders is to be coherent in the way that the European Parliament never tires of asking that it should be, must not the priority of the arms-exporting States, in a sphere ultra-sensitive to public opinion, be that of simultaneously paying attention to human rights, conflict prevention and the European Union’s external security? Our rapporteur, Mr Titley, is proposing a bold resolution to Parliament. He emphasises the entirely inadequate nature of the code of conduct which, it should be remembered, is non-binding. The code ought therefore to be made legally binding. Controls must be tightened up, and the ultimate use to which exported arms are put must be strictly monitored In a word, the trade in death must stop. The supervisory mechanism must above all be extended to the light, small calibre arms used in a great many regional and ethnic conflicts throughout the world, which are often turned against the civil and military personnel of EU countries. Finally, Mr Titley proposes cooperating with the United States – and why not, I might add, with Russia and China too? – in order to devise a common approach to conventional arms export controls similar to that established for chemical weapons control. The five permanent members of the Security Council, who are supposed to watch over our security, should listen to these proposals and negotiate an arrangement truly worthy of the twenty-first century as quickly as possible.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, everybody knows that we are currently on the brink of disaster. The US Government, taking advantage of the terrorist acts of 11 September, is now imposing State terrorism on the entire world with the aim of establishing its economic and military domination everywhere. Not content to allow the Palestinian people to be massacred, to allow 500 000 Iraqi children to die due to the embargo and millions of Africans with AIDS to die due to lack of care, President Bush is going to invade Iraq in order, in particular, to appropriate its oil. Who can seriously believe for one second that the United States want to oppose a terrorist dictatorship because it fails to respect UN decisions? We should not forget that Pinochet and Bin Laden were agents recruited and trained by the CIA, that Israel has never applied a single UN resolution and that fortunately, however, nobody is considering bombing Israel. Human rights or profits: two weights, two measures. That is the choice. This war smells of oil, and the majority in this House knows it. Without providing any support for Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship, it is our duty to pass on the mass rejection of the people which will be expressed in particular in all the capital cities on 15 February in response to the Porto Alegre forum. With or without the UN, this war is not ours. According to estimates, it will cost almost USD 30 billion, while the UN food programme, under pressure from the United States, has just been reduced to USD 1.7 billion. Rejecting the war by every possible means, using the sums allocated to war to eradicate poverty, and allowing the Palestinian people to live in a free State: those are the three imperatives of the moment.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, I congratulate Mr Lamassoure on his work these last few months and on the remarkable result he has produced. It means that the European Parliament will be there at the Convention with a set of proposals on the table. We will have done our work in terms of contributing ideas and proposals to the Convention and that in itself is very important. It is important especially if we look at the climate surrounding some of these discussions and debates. There are those who are alleging that the European Union has become an over-centralised monstrosity; that we need to take powers back to the Member States; that we should define a catalogue of competences specifying in great detail what the EU is allowed and not allowed to do. This report refutes those arguments. It demonstrates quite clearly, in a very good response, that the competences of the European Union are not over-done: they are, in fact, finely tuned according to the subject. There are some areas where the Union has what could be called an exclusive competence – though that term has been avoided in the resolution. They are quite limited but important. The bulk of the Union's responsibilities are what could be called shared competences, where the intensity of Union action varies greatly from one subject to another. In some areas we lay down detailed legislation – which the Member States have to comply with. In other areas the Union has a coordinating role and in still other areas it contributes with complementary actions. This is flexible and it is adapted to the needs of different policy areas, and should remain so. The true guarantee against over-centralisation is, and should be, a political guarantee as we consider proposals in the normal procedures of the institutions: from the Commission, as Mr Méndez de Vigo has just said, when it makes its proposals to us as a Parliament, and also the Council. Let us remind ourselves who sits on the Council: national ministers, members of national governments, accountable to national parliaments – not people who are predisposed towards centralising everything in the European Union. Not at all. You have to convince a very large majority of them to get a qualified majority. These are the political guarantees, the procedural guarantees against over-centralisation, and the ministers in the Council can, and should, involve their national parliaments as well. The Treaty of Amsterdam gave a protocol giving a six-week period for ministers to discuss with their national parliaments. That is how national parliaments should be involved, not through some new chamber of subsidiarity or some new institution. All this is well presented in the report. Where we in the Socialist Group have a reservation is on the legal control of subsidiarity. It exists already: the Court is a constitutional court in many ways. We do not, however, think a new extra procedure – an emergency procedure – is needed, and the wording should be tightened up to show that on shared competences detailed legislation can sometimes be laid down and ... (The President cut off the speaker)

Political group: PSE
Madam President, has it been brought to your attention that the Members' register of interests was last week published on an Internet site, www.mpt2001.co.uk? This was not the result of Parliament putting into practice the principles of transparency and openness, but follows the copying of the records by a team in Parliament working for a British television comedian. Now that the records have been put into the public domain, will you advise all concerned not to allow Parliament to continue looking secretive and foolish, but to take speedy action to bring us into the twenty-first century and get the information published on our own website and made permanently available to European citizens?

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we need an industrial policy in Europe, but an industrial policy that looks to the future, a green industrial policy. The are grateful to Mrs Zrihen for reminding us that Europe used to be based on three pillars: environmental, social and economic. We find that quite a number of our conservative friends, some liberals and unfortunately also some s are forgetting, or are trying to forget, Gothenburg and the need to include the environment. We cannot go back to the scientism of the 1960s and industrial policies that included no risk assessment or ecology, which are the very foundation of the twenty-first century. That is why, as , we want a better targeted research policy and are very much looking forward, impatiently, to the DG Environment’s document on environmental technologies, which has been promised for December, because environmental technologies are one of the responses to future world markets. Another thing we need is social cohesion. One point on which there really is a dividing line in our Assembly is that some believe that creativeness can be created by confusing a large proportion of European citizens. As , we believe that Europe’s strength lies in its fabric and its social cohesion: we have to preserve that. Another thing we must maintain and develop is the non-market sector. It is absolutely clear that the market sector rests on the non-market and that Europe lacks a non-market policy in areas like education, infrastructure and creativeness. Finally, world trade policy. I think that with India, China and Russia we are witnessing a new momentum in world politics: these are countries with a very good level of education. They are therefore going to have engineers, but for decades they will be paid much less than ours. How are we going to deal with this reality in a world where we give priority only to competition instead of partnerships?

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, I wish to thank the rapporteur. This report on health care and care for the elderly is timely. According to the 2001 census, 18.61% of the population in Scotland are over pension age and, even more interesting, 19.54% – almost 20% – of carers are over pension age. The ageing population presents us with huge challenges, not just in Scotland but across the whole EU. That is why sharing best practice between countries throughout the EU is so vital. We need to look at simple solutions focused on individual persons. Older adults can often have multiple medical problems. That is why a holistic approach, involving a multidisciplinary team of doctors, nurses, occupational therapists, physiotherapists, speech and language therapists, dieticians and social workers, along with the person's family, is so important. Although more doctors are being trained in geriatric care, which is a growing area of interest, there still needs to be more investment in this expanding specialism. For the older person, there are other issues to consider. It is a popular misbelief that a large percentage of older adults live in some form of care home. In fact, a large proportion of older adults live independently, with family or social support. My great aunt Agnes, at 91 years of age, is one of them. Sometimes when an older patient is ill and recovering in hospital what is important to them is to be able to return home and cope at home. For some older patients this can be more important than the treatment of their medical condition itself. With people living longer, and an increasing proportion of the population over 65, it is also interesting that a lot of medical trials do not include elderly patients, although this matter is beginning to be addressed. We have a responsibility to the older population within the EU. After all, one day we too will be part of the older population, since none of us is getting any younger.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, I am as concerned as anybody in this House about the suffering of the people of Iraq as the result of sanctions but also of the actions of their own government. We should all remember that sanctions are sometimes better than the alternatives that we may have to consider. If we are to support this resolution then Iraq must most definitely honour its obligations under all the United Nations resolutions. We, as a Parliament, must stand by our resolution of January this year, calling for the release of all Kuwaitis and other non-Iraqi nationals who are still imprisoned in Iraq. I had the opportunity to visit Iraq last month. I met the families of the Kuwaiti prisoners. I can tell you that fathers do not forget their sons, brothers do not forget their brothers, children do not forget their fathers; nor should this House. We should remind Saddam Hussein that he must honour his obligations to the international community and we shall then honour our obligations to Iraq.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, I close my eyes and what do I see? I am in Venice, the most beautiful city in the world! There is the moon, there are the gondolas, we are on the Grand Canal, Italian cooking, spaghetti with sepia, Dom Pérignon French champagne and a blonde beauty who takes me back to my youth. However, because of lack of secrecy on personal data and lack of protection of privacy, when I get home I find my suitcases outside the door: my wife found out! That is why I have voted in favour, Mr President. But was it a dream I was talking about or was it reality?

Political group: PPE-DE
The directive on a system of environmental liability based on the trite 'polluter pays' principle, which has proven to be efficient for the restoration of environmental damage by those responsible but also detrimental, in that it has weakened actual prevention and is ultimately proving to be the most cynical excuse for new tax burdens on 'polluted citizens' in that the polluters – big industrial business – not only are not paying for the restoration of the huge disasters they cause (Erika, Prestige, Sevezo etc.) but also, in addition, they are being strengthened by incentives and tax relief. Environmental damage is being reduced to manifest hypocrisy, in that the 'financial guarantees' on the part of the operator are being shifted to the state and to the workers either by increasing operating costs or by passing them on in product prices. With the exemptions and its limited scope, it is being reduced to a 'fig leaf' for monopoly interests, in that it does not include overall protection of biodiversity, oil pollution, nuclear damage, non-ionising radiation, GMOs etc. and provocatively exempts from liability charges those who cause huge ecological damage through unprovoked and barbaric military interventions. The limited definitions of damage, liability and other basic concepts, which are shot through with exemptions and peculiar 'presumptions of non liability' make us particularly cautious and critical with respect to this 'environmental liability'.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, in two weeks it will be 9 November. This is the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the wall which symbolised the division of Europe, the hostility and the distance between East and West. On that day, we shall celebrate the fact that it is 13 years since the joyful masses clambered over a crumbling wall, and the long journey towards reconciliation and unification began. Now we are almost there. We are approaching our destination. The Commission’s report confirms that ten countries can become members in just over a year. It is a fantastic feeling, but the joy is tempered slightly by a nagging unease. We are getting there. We are approaching the finishing line and are noticing that quite a few of us are becoming nervous. Support for the candidate countries is waning, and several Member States, leading politicians and parties are speaking of waiting or postponing on the grounds that ‘we are not ready’. Internal policy considerations are overshadowing the historic task of unifying Europe for the first time ever; by means of agreements, negotiations and compromise, not by means of threats, tanks or invasion. Of course, many people around Europe are asking themselves questions about how cooperation will work and how it will develop. Difficulties and problems will arise. After all, who believed that it would be easy to unify Europe? This anxiety must be taken seriously, and we must discuss it. We must demonstrate our genuine intention to reform and open up the EU. It is towards this that the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party is working most actively in the Convention – because it has to succeed. We must also become much better at bringing the results of the Convention’s discussions out of the conference rooms in Brussels. Above all, however – and little has been said about this in the debate – it is leadership which is required: from us, from the Commission and from you in the Council. It is deplorable that internal policy considerations, mean-mindedness and populism are what are communicated to our citizens instead of talk of visions, opportunities and Europe’s big chance. We, the politicians, have an enormous responsibility to explain, educate and guide opinion. Forked tongues arouse distrust in our countries and the candidate countries. I hope, therefore, that the Council meeting over the weekend will be crystal clear and unanimous in saying: ‘Yes, you are most welcome.’

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, I thank the rapporteur, Mr Caudron, and Commissioner Busquin, who have both helped us to work efficiently, as have the shadow rapporteurs. The Sixth Framework Programme is the first implementation of the European Research Area, which itself is a consequence of the Lisbon Summit and its wish for us to have a successful knowledge-based economy, because of the strong correlation between research and development and economic success – inadequate in most EU countries outside Scandinavia, I should say. We welcome the emphasis on looking for European added value, not scattering the limited funds over the whole range of research carried out. So I am glad that we are now targeting cutting-edge research, particularly in areas like nano-technology, which will be very significant in the future. There are, however, some gaps in the proposals which we wish to see filled. They include, of course, health, other than strictly post-genomic research, non-nuclear energy and land and water transport. I come to international activities, because the research framework programme must look outside the EU as well. It is essential that there is both earmarked money for international cooperative research – we suggest EUR 400 million – and mainstreaming across all the research, particularly on HIV/AIDS malaria and tuberculosis. We must involve the countries that suffer from those scourges in the research. The sums allocated in the Commissioner's proposal for science and society were inadequate. We propose to double the spending on science and society. We do not think that having one specific programme with one management will lead to transparency and adequate monitoring. I therefore hope that our suggestion will ensure that we are able to have both openness and good management of each individual part of the programmes. Although we welcome networks of excellence and integrated projects, we must maintain more familiar mechanisms at the early stages. We must at all costs avoid the creation of scientific cartels. I am pleased with the new mission of the JRC. I served on Mr Davignon's panel and it is certainly consistent with the panel's views. As far as the Euratom section of the Sixth Framework Programme is concerned, I have very grave doubts as to whether the ITER project will be implemented and my personal view – this is not the view of the rapporteur – is that extra funding is not therefore needed. It will be available in any case. The framework programmes are one of the big success stories of the European Union. Let us build on their past success.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, here are some of the statistics from the document: EUR 920 million for the Socrates programme; EUR 126 million for the ‘Youth for Europe’ programme. Last Monday, I went to sleep in the aeroplane that was carrying me to Strasbourg via Rome, Nice and Milan, and I dreamed I was on a ship: that’s right, on a ship, because Mrs Langenhagen is usually the rapporteur for maritime issues. On this ship, rocked by the waves, I dreamed I was at the European Parliament, asking – after voting for the report, as I have done – the many Members present in the House: ‘When will there be a ‘Methuselah’ programme for pensioners? When will there be a ‘Young at heart for Europe’ programme?’

Political group: PPE-DE