GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Mr President, Commissioner, allow me firstly to make a very personal observation. The week before the Prestige accident, my party and I organised a conference on maritime safety in the Bay of Finland, that is to say on precisely those issues referred to by, for example, Mr Purvis. You can appreciate my feelings when I then suspected, and was finally able to have it confirmed, where the Prestige actually came from, and understood that the situation could have been precisely the same in the Bay of Finland as off the coast of Galicia. At the same time, we know that we can presumably expect the amount of traffic through the Baltic to increase tenfold. The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy has been closely involved in this issue. We are also trying to improve Parliament’s reputation. We perhaps had something to hide where the Erika package was concerned. The opinion of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy also emphasises the importance of neighbouring countries’ subscribing to the same rules because, as Mr Purvis also pointed out, these tankers sail close to our coasts, even if they do not put into EU harbours. We also support the proposal for having 2010 as the final phasing-out year, a proposal that the Council had come up with and that we are now prepared to agree upon. We also propose that the inspection requirements be looked at. We should have liked to have seen the inspection requirements apply irrespective of age. We are now talking about 15 year-old vessels, but it is important for a vessel, irrespective of age, to be of a good class and standard and to be well maintained. Our experience shows that what the EU has agreed upon is in fact translated into the rules of the IMO. We saw this most recently in connection with the oil fund. What worries me is why we have not at this stage been able to adopt the proposal by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy that there be a paragraph stating that we must demand ice-strengthening. I want to ask the Commissioner why the Commission has set its face against our adding a paragraph introducing ice-strengthening requirements, in addition to the requirements for single hull vessels to be phased out and double hull vessels phased in.

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, I should like to propose that we replace the words, ‘USA’s invasion of Afghanistan’ by the words, ‘the conflict in Afghanistan’. (The President established that there were no objections to the oral amendment) (Parliament adopted the recommendation) *** President. – That concludes the vote. EXPLANATIONS OF VOTE - Report: Costa (A5-0074/2004)

Political group: ELDR
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, first of all I would like to congratulate the Finnish Presidency on the success of Tampere with regard to the opening up of a new stage in the development of European citizenship, dealing with the always difficult balance between liberty and security. This demonstrates that we are not only building a Union based on freedom for goods, services and capital, but also one which will respond to the question of the freedom of settlement and movement of European citizens. A step forward has been taken with regard to the fourth liberty of the Treaty of Rome: the access to justice beyond national boundaries, thanks to the mutual recognition of sentences, the possibility of fighting organised crime and money-laundering beyond national boundaries. Furthermore there is another important dimension, Madam President, and that is that we are now on the eve of a new wave of enlargement, as the President-in-Office of the Council has said, and we are also witnessing a series of election results which are a clear warning for all of us that certain xenophobic and racist attitudes are arising within the populations of some of our countries. Therefore, it is very important, at the moment, that we are capable of sending a message of freedom and progress in the face of this type of defensive reaction which demonstrates that not everything has yet been consolidated. And this is especially important in relation to two issues. The first is asylum. I believe that this is one of the basic freedoms which we have to defend, and to this end, a single system of asylum is very important, and I say this from the point of view of somebody who comes from a country in which political asylum saved the lives of many of those who fought for freedom and allowed them to continue to live in other European countries. The second is immigration. We have to strive, depending on our own particular situations, for legal immigrants to have the same rights, together with a policy of co-development which will prevent the kind of out-of-hand immigration which we have been witnessing for a long time. And to this end, we believe that this is the way to tackle the issue afresh and we also support – as the Parliament’s initiative demonstrates – the creation of a refugee fund, which we believe may be a key element. To conclude, Madam President, we understand that the Commission has repeated what it did with regard to the internal market, the scoreboard system and the emulation system. This is positive. We still advocate that there should be a public prosecutor to fight fraud at a Community level. Finally, I am grateful to the President-in-Office of the Council for being here today. I regret that the presence of the Council in the Committees of this Parliament has not been too frequent, because that would have helped us to debate and get to know each other better so that we could have moved forward together.

Political group: PSE
I should like to thank the Commissioner for that answer because I share his view that Parliament should be involved in the evaluation of problems relating to any execution of the Fifth Framework Programme or any previous programme as well. We need to have a framework for the future as to how we operate because I am concerned about the financial burden of the previous framework programmes. Whilst I accept the need for the continuation of the Fourth Framework Programme, I find it a bit odd that six years later we are still dealing with payments that need to be settled for the Third Framework Programme. Has the Commission given thought to a policy of cancelling all commitments after two or three years if they have not paid? I know from my Committee on Budgets role that Commissioner Patten has been pursuing various methods of removing some of the huge backlog of outstanding payments within the field of external relations. Does the Commission believe that these policies could be applied to the research budget? Finally, how does the Commission propose to improve the implementation of the research budget in the forthcoming Sixth Framework Programme?

Political group: PSE
Philosophical considerations aside, the Sixth Framework Programme on research sends a clear message to the scientific community about the responsibilities that the European Parliament is able to shoulder. What would become of a society in which science did not occupy its rightful place? What would become of our nations if knowledge and research were to stagnate? In affirming the European desire to create an area of research and innovation, we are clearly rejecting tendencies to look to the past and attitudes that oppose change. The Sixth Framework Programme also underlines Europe’s clear and firm commitment to be at the forefront of technological developments, to be innovative, competitive, dynamic and to build our future. The proof of this are the numerous, practical aspects that the FP6 contains, such as human/social research, principles of integrating environmental issues, sustainable development, improved mobility, equal opportunities, the role of universities and higher education in general and openness to the world. I hope that Europe will develop in this way in practical terms and on a daily basis. - Report Schnellhardt (A5-0129/2002)

Political group: PSE
Madam President, I would just like to draw the attention of the House to what happened yesterday in Rome. A disaster occurred in which many firemen died and others were wounded; some of them are in an extremely serious condition. They rushed to save human lives with the same courage displayed by the firemen in New York. I feel that it is right for us, as European citizens and the European Parliament, to pay tribute to these brave men who have laid down their lives in an attempt to save the lives of others. A block of flats collapsed, and if these men had not sacrificed themselves, others might have died. I feel that Parliament should also pay tribute to these brave, remarkable firemen.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, first of all, on behalf of the Group I thank the rapporteur for her work and also the presidency for its cooperation. This has been very a useful exercise in achieving a second reading agreement on an important proposal, one which is tackling a persistent, organic and very long-standing problem. We believe that this report is now a very satisfactory one and we are very happy to vote for it. I am very pleased that a number of the outstanding issues have been resolved. The whole issue of the legal basis has now been resolved, and I am satisfied with that. On the issue of POPs waste, we have come to a pragmatic realisation of the difficulties of completely abolishing waste containing POPs and we think that the appropriate proposal here will meet with the inevitable residual problems that we find with POPs being in waste and in other places. As regards some of the other issues, such as the problem of stockpiles, and technical and financial assistance, we have all come to reasonable agreements, and the rapporteur can be very proud that she has made a very positive step forward, which I do not think will take long to implement. The great thing about a second reading agreement is the willingness to take it forward into legislation quickly, which we are all waiting for. Naming and shaming is something which may or may not be necessary in this proposal: it is already contained in the Aarhus Convention. This is something we need to revisit, but a point that the rapporteur was right to raise. The whole issue of compatibility with the REACH Directive is one that we must all have on our minds at all times. That new proposal on REACH is going to be very important, but it must be comprehensive in its scope. We must find a way in which we can ensure, for example, that whilst POPs are outside the REACH Proposal, chemicals that contain POPs or might produce POPs as a residue are inside the proposal. This would be a very important step forward. It will certainly tighten up any potential loophole that might be created during the time in which we are going to work on that very important proposal here in the autumn. The Group will be voting for this proposal tomorrow. We thank the rapporteur for her work, we thank the Commission for its proposal and cooperation, and finally the presidency for its willingness to find a second reading agreement.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, I understand that the purpose of this proposal is to allow the regulation of herbal medicines under a simplified procedure. However, it is a fact that producers, retailers and consumers have been astonished and dismayed by the cascade of highly restrictive legislation dealing with such products that have been safe and available in certain Member States including my own for many years. We have heard from certain colleagues, particularly in the UK, that is also the case there. We need simple, basic regulation to protect the consumer because there are, as Mrs Stihler has said, products that purport to contain herbal remedies that do not actually contain those herbals. However, while doing that, we need to ensure that products are not withdrawn from the market as a result of legislation and we cannot be certain that this is going to be the case under the present procedures. I welcome the clarification that the amendments make to the report. It is particularly important to clarify that the Committee for Herbal Medicines should only deal with products for medicinal use, not food use. I, like MrsStihler, use echinacea. I also use garlic. Garlic is an extremely potent medicinal remedy; it is also a food in wide circulation. We risk making a nonsense of ourselves if we allow this committee to deal with food products. I want to emphasise this point to the Commissioner and I hope he takes it on board. I would like to thank all the colleagues in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy for their hard work, but it is a fact that there is a great diversity of traditions within the Community and the harmonisation of this legislation really risks losing products that are in safe use and have been in safe use for many years. Our citizens will not accept this. I give the Commissioner full warning that if this ensues it will not be a happy result either for the Member States or for Brussels.

Political group: Verts-ALE
It is very important that we have the opportunity to question the Commission on this sensitive issue and the issue between questioning and debate should not loom so large. We have a procedure and that is that we should proceed now to questioning in depth. Certainly in my group we have not prepared a list of speakers, nor do we wish to revert to that procedure at this moment. But we would welcome the opportunity to question the Commission in depth and eventually we can have with due process a reflective debate on the matter. We should not be discussing a sensitive question, such as this beef issue, on the hoof.

Political group: ELDR
Thank you, Mr President. Ladies and gentlemen, with the LEADER report, rural development is very much to the fore. This does not happen all that often and it is gratifying, especially as the LEADER programmes have been key elements in the Union’s rural development policy. It must be pointed out that these programmes have not only been instrumental in structuring regional planning, but have also been vital instruments for economic and social cohesion in often vulnerable areas such as, for example, areas experiencing depopulation. It must be stressed that in order to become eligible under the LEADER programme, local operators have combined forces, debated and prepared projects. These programmes have, therefore, been important channels for participative democracy, the rationale of the citizen for Europe. So, the concept for LEADER+ should retain all the positive aspects of previous programmes. One urgent question is therefore raised: why, when this programme has been successfully run for ten years, is LEADER+ still classed as experimental? Are there so many other European schemes which can boast 800 specific original experiments which were particularly successful? For how much longer is the Commission going to leave LEADER at the experimental stage instead of bringing it online as part of the general concept of mainstreaming of rural development? Moreover, I wonder at the reduced guidelines to which the Commission wishes to restrict LEADER+. At a time when, Commissioner, after Seattle, we Europeans are fighting on the grounds of multifunctionality in rural development projects, why should we confine ourselves to a few limited criteria with resources that are far from sufficient? As an ecologist, let met tell you that the precautionary principle and sustainable development require much more diversified and many-sided approaches. In this connection, the Commission is proposing to limit yet further the cooperation actions of local action groups to only candidate countries. A better solution would be, as indeed the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism suggests, strengthened coordination between LEADER+ and the Community cooperation and partnership programmes, such as INTERREG, PHARE, SAPARD or MEDA. The fact is, showing solidarity with Eastern Europe, is all very well, but it is not enough. The tradition which has already been established by the previous programmes with the countries of the south, particularly the countries around the Mediterranean, must not be abandoned. Therefore, once more, we can stress that what the area of agriculture and rural development really needs is codecision. Codecision would give us effective means to progress programmes of this type, which require cooperation and cross-disciplinary application. IN THE CHAIR: MR DAVID MARTINVice-President

Political group: Verts-ALE
Madam President, it is a matter of great regret that the European Council has not supported the examination of the Israeli wall at the International Court of Justice. This is a hugely wasted opportunity. Opposition to a hearing at the ICJ, because it is a legal – not a political – forum, misses the point. The ICJ is probably the last available instrument of pressure on Tel Aviv, and we should be grasping it with both hands. Those people who say that instead we should be relying on European pressure on Israel should tell me when European pressure alone on Israel has ever yielded any results – it has not. Yet, when there is an international multilateral forum that exists to address this issue, we turn our backs upon it. Palestinians rightly point to the inconsistency of our position of urging them to give up violence, while simultaneously denying them the chance to seek redress through international legal institutions. A Palestinian negotiator observed that the US, the UK and Germany asked the Palestinians not to have recourse to violence, but when the Palestinians have recourse to diplomacy the door is slammed on them. Moreover, there are compelling humanitarian reasons to act. I visited the Occupied Territories last month and saw for myself how the wall is destroying thousands of acres of farmland and trees, demolishing homes and shops and leaving thousands of families landless, jobless, hungry and hopeless. As a result, according to studies by the World Bank and the UN, the Palestinian people have been reduced to the poverty and malnutrition levels of sub-Saharan Africa. The Israeli claim that this is something to do with security is completely undermined by the fact that the wall does not follow the 1967 'green line'. Instead, as people have said, it cuts deep into Palestinian land. This wall is intolerable, illegal and immoral, and by failing to support the ICJ as a forum to consider it, the Council has been reckless and irresponsible. The Council has also not been transparent, and I would like a copy of the letter that contains the presidency's submission to the ICJ to be made widely available.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteurs and the Commissioner, and commiserate with her for her illness. Although she was actually speaking to Mrs Ahern, I hope that whatever happens to Kyoto, we would pursue policies on a no-regrets basis, which, apart from helping the climate, make complete business sense. The package is, as the Commissioner said, a response to the European Parliament, which is in turn responding to the very real fears and concerns of European citizens, as is our duty – my voice sounds rather similar to yours, Commissioner, I apologise: I too have a cold. Whatever one's views about the future of nuclear power, mine are considerably less optimistic than those of others who have spoken. I believe that market liberalisation means there is practically no future for nuclear power without a huge change in the ability of states to promote it. I believe that technical advancement in other forms of energy, including perhaps nuclear fusion, make the future very unsure. We are talking about the present, namely the present dangers of nuclear accidents and the present uncertainty surrounding the disposal of existing radioactive waste. I regret very much that the changes which the Convention could have made to the Euratom Treaty were not seized upon – in great cowardice – by Member States and by the Convention. As far as radioactive waste is concerned, there is no agreed solution. The Royal Society in the United Kingdom pointed out that the so-called solution of deep geological burial has many uncertain points which need to be solved technically. There is no public acceptance either in my country or in many others of deep-level storage. We must look at other possibilities, including partition and transmutation. The issue of decommissioning funds is one that has been rightly raised and is of great concern. I am glad that has been tackled. The risk of accidents, with which Mr Seppänen's report and your draft directive are concerned, has also been strengthened because of 11 September, as has the even more serious security question which is now facing us. I read today that Germany has come up with a somewhat bizarre solution which appears to be to cover nuclear power stations with artificial fog! Frankly, we need to be a little bit more constructive than that. I have some doubts about the capability of the European Commission to have the resources and rigour which our citizens demand. Therefore, my Group, although it supports the two reports, wants a lot more from you, Commissioner, and from our Member States. I hope that will be forthcoming. Citizens really worry about these issues.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, the proposal for a regulation aims to provide a legal basis for transferring the financial contribution from the CFSP to the budget for the first pillar, which we consider a positive move, since Parliament’s lack of monitoring powers over the CFSP itself is a disgrace. The draft resolution and the amendments therefore quite rightly stress the need to step up supervision of all operations to fund what are euphemistically called bodies in receipt of aid, in order to avoid any mention of a protectorate. This is what is really at issue in Bosnia or in Kosovo. The resolution indeed is silent on the key issue, which is the validity of the policy implemented in the former Yugoslavia. What is the state of affairs, five years on, in Bosnia-Herzegovina? How is the outcome of the war in Kosovo to be appraised? How much did the military intervention cost? How much did the destruction cost? Through an 80% increase in the 2001 budget, the peoples of Europe are being asked to foot the bill for the parties that caused the destruction and that now want to embark on reconstruction, for the greater profit of a few industrialists. But who do they think they are kidding when those self-same Heads of State that conducted the war are now causing living conditions everywhere to deteriorate and making employment less secure? What is more, the planned solutions to assist these protectorates are problematic and harmful. For example, the level of the wages handed out to international organisations only serve to undermine these regions further. For example, and this is still more tragic, there are still no effective controls on the distribution of aid. Even the Committee on Budgetary Control is stressing the serious abuses in the management of European Union aid to Bosnia-Herzegovina. The deutschmark is foisted on Kosovo, and the law of the market prevails. As far as we are concerned, the outcome of the military intervention speaks for itself. Milosevic is still in power. Kosovo is a ravaged country. The ethnic divide is becoming entrenched, at the same time that an ungovernable protectorate is being set up which is seeking to deny the Kosovars independence without, for all that, being capable of applying the hypocritical framework of UN Resolution 1244. For all these reasons, unlike my fellow Members who have spoken so far, we will be unable to vote in favour of a resolution which makes only marginal improvements to a disastrous policy.

Political group: GUE-NGL