GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Mr President, I would like the President of this House to write a letter about a very important matter. As you can see, I am wearing a pink scarf. This represents the American women's peace movement called Code Pink which is for peace, not war. Members of this organisation were arrested outside the White House because it appears that the rules have been changed so that no more than five people are allowed to protest outside the White House and they are also banned from Lafayette Park. We are always raising the issue of people's right to demonstrate and to express their opposition to government policy, wherever that may be. I am very concerned that our fellow citizens in the United States, many of whom I met last week and who are powerful, energetic, peace-loving people, are being refused the right to protest against their own government's policy. This Parliament, which represents democracy and people's right to freedom of expression, should write to the American authorities. It should express to President George Bush its grave opposition to the curtailment of the right to free expression. The President of this Parliament should write as soon as possible in support of the peace women of America and all the peace activists to enable them to express their opposition to any impending war.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, I should also like to thank the rapporteur for his excellent work on this issue, which has enabled us to come to an agreement on this second reading. At a time when GMOs are the subject of intense debate, not only in Europe but throughout the world, it is vital that we can agree on at least some aspects of the regulation. Amongst the most important points in this report are the requirement for prior written express consent of the importing country before any movement of GMOs can take place, an obligation on the Commission to make export notifications available to the public and the requirement on Member States to prevent accidental cross-boundary movement of GMOs – the latter addressing the major debate of the moment, coexistence. Here we are talking about implementing the Cartegena Protocol, which covers the export of GMOs to countries outside the EU. The protocol, as others have said, will enter into force when ratified by 50 countries. I was pleased to hear the Commissioner say that 49 countries, plus the European Community, have already done so. As eight Member States have been awaiting adoption of this regulation, a positive vote tomorrow will lead almost directly to the Cartegena Protocol coming into force. This will have a significant impact, particularly on the poorest countries, allowing them the choice of whether or not to accept GMOs, the very choice that we want for people everywhere, including those people forced to depend on aid.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, I am grateful to the President of the Council for his comprehensive answer, and I am pleased that he himself states that the situation in Chechnya is still tragic. I have taken note of the Council’s statement that it will continue to discuss the situation in Chechnya during all meetings with Russian authorities. I would also expressly like to thank the President of the Council for his condemnation of all human rights violations and for the fact that he calls for change, and continues to do so. In addition, I thank the President of the Council for confirming once again that a political solution alone can end the Chechen conflict. He also states that the European Union will seize every opportunity to achieve this political solution, and he rightly refers to the contacts between the Russian government and the government of the Chechen President, Mr Maskhadov. It is clear that these talks deserve a helping hand, but Mr President of the Council, I am a little disappointed with your very diplomatic use of language. It is evident that the contacts with the Russian government will be stepped up in the weeks to come. The Russian Prime Minister will be visiting Brussels during the EU Summit at the end of May; I should like to ask you what concrete initiatives you will take in order to translate the fine declaration of intent, which you gave today, into action? This is my specific, supplementary question. Thank you for your response.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, Commissioner, it will be no surprise to you when I say that I would of course have preferred it if the three fine amendments adopted – admittedly by a small majority, but adopted nonetheless – in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy had been made use of. Things being as they are, and politics being the art of the possible, I would, however, like to make it plain to you that this House cannot be expected to co-decide on a European directive that demands that winemakers and brewers should indicate on the bottle label that these beverages were produced using fish and eggs. That, though, would have happened had we approved the Common Position without the amendments tabled by our rapporteur, Mrs Klaß. To her I would like to extend the warmest thanks for her tireless efforts at bringing to the light of day a well thought-out directive, one that will of course ensure that, where potentially-allergenic ingredients – and I say ingredients rather than processing aids – are present, that presence is required to be indicated on a label. Wine and beer, however, do not contain such allergy-triggering ingredients. There is no doubt that their manufacture and processing involves the use of traces of processing aids described in Annex IIIa as having allergenic potential, these being isinglass and egg derivatives as clarifiers and fining agents. They help in technical processes such as filtering. The crucial difference from conventional additives is that processing aids are removed after use, and things that are not present in wine or beer do not have to be declared on the list of ingredients. That is the solution that this House adopted at first reading. I am convinced that the ministers responsible would, if they had known what is at stake, have followed this House’s wise and far-sighted lead and would have put a proper Common Position before us. We know for certain that the presence in the end product of traces of the aids used cannot be scientifically demonstrated, even though, in such small quantities, they are unlikely to trigger allergies. Until such time as that is sorted out, there must be no labelling of such a nature as to mislead consumers, arouse unwarranted fears and do indefensible harm to major sectors of industry. That is why our approval of our rapporteur’s compromise motion represents the outermost limit of what we can tolerate, and beyond that we cannot go. Commissioner, as you did not give Mrs Klaß an answer, I will ask you once more: is it indeed the case that studies may be submitted nine months after the directive enters into force? This is something that must be clarified now, or else the rapporteur will have to speak for another few minutes. (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Convention has presented its responses to the questions posed at Laeken in the form of a draft Constitution. We are all aware and appreciative of the high quality and lofty ambitions of those responses. They are not desultory, but form one body, whose feet are firmly planted on the ground and which is prepared, with great pragmatism, to imagine a responsible and challenging future for Europe. The thinking behind the draft on the table is not short-termist or experimental. As a Constitution, this text aspires to permanence. As the work of human hands, however, it is not perfect or polished. It can and should be fine-tuned, as long as its basic equilibrium is maintained. The Gil-Robles – Tsatsos report is very clear in that regard. The Intergovernmental Conference can and should make the text of the Constitution more coherent, and improve some of its proposals. In this connection, I would like to support what the rapporteur, Mr Gil-Robles, and the Chairman of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, Mr Napolitano, have already said about the problems of the two-tier regime for the composition and functioning of the Commission, which, to my mind, is undesirable because it is inefficient. Commissioner Barnier spoke to us a moment ago of nostalgia, warning us that it is not a good guide in politics. I can think of no better advice to give the Heads of Government charged with approving the Constitution at the next Intergovernmental Conference, for the process they are currently overseeing is not like previous revisions of the Treaties. The Convention was not simply a preparatory phase, as its predecessors were. It led to very important political balances and consensuses being achieved, and they should remain intact. The Heads of Government, therefore, are obliged to do much better. The responsibility they bear is thus much greater.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, last year was a miserable year for Europe, and the challenge is now to restore the confidence in the institutions and in the agreements that they have concluded. This confidence will also be reflected in the turnout for the European Parliament elections in June. One way of restoring this confidence is more transparency and democracy. We are looking for a new President of the Commission, and we are looking for an independent, energetic person with the backing of a majority in the new Parliament. I would therefore ask the President of the Council to consider involving Parliament in the nominations of candidates, by, for example, having the political families put forward names. We should in any event get away from back-room decisions taken in the middle of the night. Secondly, confidence can be restored by effective intervention in cross-border problems. This is what the public expect from us. Major epidemics are a case in point. The fact that SARS has passed us by during previous epidemic crises is more down to luck than good judgment. A new SARS epidemic is looming and I am asking the presidency to take the initiative to ensure that the Public Health Ministers grant the Commission – in this case, Commissioner Byrne – far-reaching powers to take crisis management measures, such as uniform controls at airports, should this prove necessary. In any case, I am confident that this presidency can restore confidence in the institutions, and your inspired speech of today only encourages me in this.

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, the Commission proposal and the report by Mr Bowis deserve our unqualified support. Food must be safe and must be pure. We must be certain that the carcasses of BSE cows do not end up in the food chain. We must be able to rely on the fact that salmonella is being tackled. But that confidence is being shattered time after time. The more than eighty measures from the White Paper are therefore indispensable. Setting up the European Food Safety Agency is a major step in the right direction. Its key task is providing scientific advice, for the discussion on food safety must be pure too. Emotions run high where food is concerned: against globalisation, large-scale production and genetic modification, and in favour of local produce, tradition and diversity. Those emotions are often justified, but we must ensure that they do not become a cover for protectionism. Whilst acknowledging the boom in ready-made food, we must also adopt a pro-active approach. The new food must be of quality, the ingredients traceable, and labels must offer honest information. Consumers deserve a choice. The food authority must provide objective information to both consumers and decision makers. As draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, I would like to highlight a few points. Decision-making must be clear and transparent. As duplication of the work and of scientific research must be avoided, we need to collaborate with national research institutes and the joint research centres. In addition, food safety is a matter for the entire food sector, from the farmer right down to the consumer. Sound communication between consumers, producers, the retail trade, workers and transporters is crucial. So is attention to diversity in the SMEs. Strict requirements and effective control are indispensable, but competition should be kept clean in the process. Finally, my Committee argues in favour of a strategy for third countries and candidate countries. Food safety is a global task; we should not cut ourselves off from produce from the United States or developing countries. We must work towards a joint agenda. I would just like to thank the rapporteur for his constructive contribution and for his willingness to take on board the recommendations from other Committees.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, Mr Haarder has described the tragedy of the Prestige as scandalous. The Commissioner, Mrs de Palacio, has said it was an unnecessary incident which could have been avoided. This means that both the Presidency of the Council and the Commission and even Mr Galeote feel that there is blame to be apportioned. This is why we are calling for Parliament to set up a committee of inquiry with the task of identifying where the different responsibilities for the incident and for the subsequent salvage and emergency operations lie, particularly where the Spanish Government is concerned, which, I would remind you, was amongst those who firmly supported the rejection and weakening of the ‘Erika package’ and which is now calling in major building and construction firms to clean up the beaches. We condemn the fact that the Council has only adopted part of the Commission’s proposals. Here, we would like to pay tribute to the Belgian Minister – who, moreover, is one of the few remaining – who was one of the very few people to support the package proposed by the Commission and to fight for it to be adopted in its entirety. The European Union needs its own legislative framework because we are absolutely sure that the international community will not be able to produce adequate legislation. We feel that there are two supplementary measures which need to be taken in addition to those already adopted. Firstly, the port state control bodies must carry out inspections on at least 25% of the ships entering each of the ports of the individual Member States rather than an average calculation being carried out at national level. Secondly, there must be new standards ensuring that dangerous substances are transported in smaller container ships than at present with a maximum capacity of 10 000 tonnes. Moreover, we feel that the Commission proposal for a directive on environmental liability must also include marine pollution and that, in the event of oil spillage, the European Union must adopt the same financial responsibility system as that already applied in the United States, where ship owners have unlimited financial responsibility if blame for the incident can be attributed to them. Lastly, Mr President, the European Union must provide sufficient financial support through the Structural Funds and through the Solidarity Fund to meet the needs of Galicia and northern Spain and help them to recover from this disaster. Moreover, we must on no account disregard the fact that many Nature 2000 areas are affected by this disaster.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Madam President, all this triumphant talk masks the latest instalment in a policy to ensure that global trade serves the interests of the multinationals. Further liberalisation is still the main objective, that is, opening up the markets in poor countries to the industrialised products of the developed countries which, at the same time, will import agricultural produce to compete with our own, together with raw materials at derisory prices. In the agricultural sector, the main aim is to wipe out subsidies, which would strike a tremendous blow to production in countries such as Greece where, I should point out, farmers have taken to the roads yet again in order to demand a fair price for their labour. When it comes to foreign investment, competition, public procurement and commercial arrangements, the ‘because I say so’ approach has been used to impose imperialist choices, despite the almost universal opposition of non-governmental organisations and the less developed countries. The meeting in Qatar confirmed the WTO as the main tool of capitalist globalisation. Any interest evinced in the problems of less developed countries and the environment is lip service and, as such, mere hypocrisy. It does, of course, show that the mass demonstrations have had an impact and that the WTO is trying to hijack the anti-globalisation movement by appearing to be sensitive to its concerns. But it took good care to shield the meeting from troublesome protestors and we would not be surprised if the next meeting were held in Antarctica. The only way open to the grass-roots movement is to resist and counterattack both the WTO and the European Union and the governments advocating and applying anti-grass roots policies.

Political group: GUE-NGL
I should like to thank my colleagues, particularly Mrs Fourtou, Mr Oreja, Mr Manders and Mrs Echerer, for supporting this initiative for a written declaration. I want to thank all Members who signed it, even if at times they felt overwhelmed by our enthusiasm and over-zealous attempts at persuasion. It is clear that piracy has now reached epidemic proportions in Europe and poses severe risks to consumer health and safety, with fake toys, medicines and spare parts coming into the EU. In 2002 alone seizure of such goods doubled in the European Union. I believe that this declaration sends a strong signal from this House to Member States and to accession countries to act to crack down on piracy. Parliament has now called for action, with this majority support. The Italian presidency should now take up this issue and put it to the top of their agenda. We hope that Member States will not ignore or dismiss this House's wish for action.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, my point also relates to the Minutes. I wonder if it might be recorded on page 11 in the English version of the Minutes, at Item 8 where we talk about voting time, that the votes commenced at 12.12 p.m. They were advertised on the screen as commencing at 12.15 p.m. and for that reason some of us missed some of the early votes.

Political group: ELDR
Madam President, I should like to begin by congratulating the rapporteur on his excellent report. The legal base for the principle involved has been in the Treaties since the Treaty of Maastricht, signed by all our Member States, ratified by all national parliaments. We have had the detail, permitting the adoption of a statute for European political parties since the Treaty of Amsterdam, signed by every Member State, ratified by every national parliament. With the Treaty of Nice, signed by every Member State, ratified by every national parliament, we permitted decisions by qualified-majority voting. Last year, the legislation finally came through on that basis, in accordance with the will of all our Member States and of all our national parliaments. This, then, is the final step in the edifice: the implementing measures internal to this House to enable us to apply the legislation that was adopted last year – legislation founded on a very broad consensus, as I have just indicated. I am therefore sad to see that there are some Members on the far right of this House, and a few British Conservatives – going against the view of the Group that they profess to belong to –– who are challenging the legislation in the Court of Justice. Their comments are sometimes surprising; they are objecting for instance to the fact that funding can be cut off for parties that do not respect the principles on which the European Union is founded, namely –– and this is laid down in the legislation –– the principles of liberty, democracy, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms and the rule of law. It would be interesting to hear what principles they think the European Union should be founded on, if they object to this basic set of principles. They are claiming, wrongly, that this would outlaw financing of political parties that are opposed to the European Union. That is not the case. It is only parties that fail to respect our fundamental values that would be in trouble. Unlike Sir Neil MacCormick, I think it is right that the task of implementation should be given to the Bureau, because the Bureau is elected by the House as a whole. It does not represent parties, unlike the Conference of Presidents, whose members represent Groups. Group leaders should not be the ones deciding this matter. It is right that it should be the Bureau: its members are elected by the House as a whole, it deals with the detailed administrative and political decisions and hears members of the parties concerned when there is a controversial decision to be taken. I welcome this proposal. I think it is a step forward, based on a broad consensus, which now has to be implemented. It will not lead to increased spending by the Union; it will provide a more transparent procedure for the sort of spending that already takes place via the political groups. It should be generally welcomed.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, with all respect to Mr Poettering, who wants his lunch, this is so complicated that we can vote on the other amendments first and then let Mr Herzog say what he has to say. I regard these tactics as unworthy of a parliament. If you have difficulties, people get the idea that ... (Heckling) Well, life is like that! We will carry on debating until he has given his opinion. That is how it is? Do you not have anything else to say? Well, you should! (Heckling)

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, firstly I wish to thank the rapporteurs, Mr Färm, Mr Podestà and Mrs Buitenweg, for their excellent reports. The package before us reveals the present state of EU budget administration: frankly, it is wretched. A full 16% of the entire budget for last year’s payment appropriations – EUR 15 billion – remained unspent. The implementation of the budget was the poorest on record. The figure for outstanding commitments has risen to EUR 110 billion, which is more than the EU’s annual budget. We are justified in asking whether there is any other organisation in the world which has such a disastrous record regarding the implementation of its budget. The situation is particularly poor regarding the Structural Funds. A total of EUR 10 billion of payment appropriations remained unspent, and, accordingly, there is an increase in the figure for outstanding commitments. While, at the start of last year, they stood at EUR 38 billion, in one year and four months they increased to EUR 82 billion. This shows that the EU’s structural policy is in danger of collapse unless its implementation gets a new lease of life. The present system does not work. The legislation should be completely revised. Next year’s budget is now beginning to take shape. It has problems with payment appropriations, which are at their lowest level for years – just 1.03% of Community GNI. This is actually EUR 4.72 billion below the ceiling set for the financial perspectives, although the increase in outstanding commitments has been explosive. There was no provision in the draft budget to reduce the RAL. Another problem is administrative expenditure, which exceeds the financial perspectives by EUR 66 million. The Commission is proposing the use of the flexibility instrument with regard to this. My group absolutely opposes this. Administrative expenditure must be able to be kept below the financial ceiling by means of internal transfers and savings. The flexibility instrument is meant to cover unforeseen expenditure.

Political group: ELDR