GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Mr President, Commissioner, reading the leaflets which have been distributed in recent weeks, one would think that we were talking about the ultimate environmental catastrophe or the death of the car industry in Europe. Neither is correct. We simply must realise that the directive on the table is a sound directive. It means ecological progress for Europe, and we can be proud of ourselves if we succeed in enacting it and setting it in motion. All the same, there is one point on which we are in conflict. In the grand scheme of the directive, it is perhaps a minor point, but nevertheless a disputed one. It concerns the issue of recycling costs. Here we find ourselves fundamentally at odds with last year's debate in the Council when freedom from costs for the last owner and the issue of financing were lumped together and a question mark placed over whether the last owner should really be free from costs. Last February in this House we unambiguously decided (and we Social Democrats are sticking to this) that the matter of freedom from costs for the last owner is not open to question! So who will pay for the vehicles which are to be disposed of? For us this is straightforward: in the case of new vehicles it should be the manufacturer since this will also compel manufacturers to design and build recyclable cars. And what about vehicles which are already on the road? Let us look at an example. Rover in Great Britain, if they were responsible for all end-of-life cars, would actually be responsible for 5.8 million cars within the European Union and would immediately have to set aside EUR 250 million against recycling costs, whereas a manufacturer from Korea building similar cars would only have to shell out peanuts, as a representative of Deutsche Bank put it. Such distortions in competition are not about environmental protection; they simply affect investment potential and the jobs of those building cars in Europe. Consequently, for end-of-life vehicles we propose setting up a fund to cover the costs of recycling end-of-life vehicles in order to safeguard the principle of freedom from costs. I can understand it when colleagues from countries which do not build cars advocate that manufacturers should pay the full whack and that they are not interested in the problem of distortions in competition when it comes to setting aside funds. However, I would ask these colleagues to show solidarity with the more than 2 million people who make a living from building cars in Europe, so that these jobs can be secured in the future. I am in favour of stringent environmental requirements, as you know from the auto-oil programme and the debate on exhaust emissions, but I believe that they should be the same for everyone!

Political group: PSE
Mr President, I am very grateful to the President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Moscovici, for his very promising reply which, furthermore, puts into practice something which Mr Chirac, President of the French Republic, said this morning, when he stated that the French Presidency had ambitious and specific aims. You have demonstrated this in your reply. Mr Chirac also told us that one of the most interesting aspects to be dealt with by the French Presidency would be the reconciliation of family life and working life. In this regard I would like to ask how we will avoid this necessary concept being misused to relegate women further and also what role men will play in the reconciliation of family life and working life.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in the field of the environment and public health, the main problem with the European legislative process is not its inability to produce appropriate legislation. The problem lies, on the one hand, in the slowness with which directives are transposed into national law and, on the other, in shortcomings in their implementation. The environmental directives that we are now debating, on PCBs, nitrates and habitats, are examples of this very problem. There is little point in our having approved the directive on habitats and the creation of the “Nature 2000” network in order to protect sites of Community importance, when the Commission has been waiting since 1995 for all the Member States to present a definitive list of these sites, as well as their plans, rules and management mechanisms. The same problem applies to the directive on PCBs. And there is little point in our having stipulated the ban on PCBs and the decontamination of all equipment containing PCBs and PCTs with a view to protecting public health, if five years on, the overwhelming majority of Member States have not only failed to implement the directive, but have also failed to take the most simple action, which was to catalogue PCBs and to produce plans for decontamination. We therefore have widespread non-compliance and for that reason, these directives have not produced the environmental results hoped for. We also have a situation, however, in which a degree of impunity reigns. The slowness of the Community's legal processes and the rare use of financial penalties against those Member States that are slow to comply have sent out two negative political messages. Those States that do comply feel that there is no incentive to continue and those that do not comply do not feel any pressure to change their ways. It is therefore crucial for the Commission, as Guardian of the Treaties, to monitor the whole process of transposing and implementing Community law, publicising the commitment of all the Member States and guaranteeing that those States that do not comply will be penalised as an example.

Political group: PPE-DE
It is my view that the amendments tabled by the European Parliament on the timing and frequency of export notifications, the level of information required, technical assistance and training are crucial to better meeting the objectives established by the Rotterdam Convention and so we hope that the Council and the Commission will receive these amendments favourably. I congratulate the rapporteur on his excellent work. - Fight against terrorism (B5-0530/2002)

Political group: PPE-DE
Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, as a member of the European Parliament delegation attending the Doha Conference, I too would like to congratulate our Commissioners on the excellent work that they accomplished and the results that they obtained, which were undeniably very positive and which bear witness to the highly effective way in which our Commissioners handled these negotiations. I should also, above all, like to say how pleased I was with the excellent cohesion and solidarity between our three institutions which were represented in Qatar. Basically, and restricting my comments solely to the agricultural issues, I was interested to discover that the European Union has given itself the room to manoeuvre that is needed to reform its common agricultural policy in response to the new expectations of our society, because non-trade considerations were explicitly mentioned in the final ministerial declaration. It seems to me that this aspect is the vital element in the outcome of Doha. The priority for European farming today should no longer be to remain competitive in exports at any cost. It should be to satisfy social demand as regards food security and the sustainable rural development. The Union can also take advantage of a success that it has achieved with regard to the United States, because all forms of aid to exports will be subject to negotiation in the new round. Finally, it seems to me that the Union can congratulate itself on the fact that special and differential treatment for developing countries has been strengthened. That should enable them to respond to their needs, including those needs relating to food security and rural development. This prospect, in its turn, is more likely to encourage the development of farming for food production, and is therefore very important from the point of view of the world demand for food, which is expected to double in the next twenty-five years owing to the increase in the populations of the developing countries and the improvement in living conditions in the emerging countries. In all, I believe this agreement represents a good balance between trade liberalisation and regulation, and also between trade and the development of all types of farming. I just hope that the negotiations in the new round will fulfil the hopes that have now been raised.

Political group: PSE
We welcome the content of this report, which seeks to promote gender equality in development cooperation and we consequently voted in favour of it. The broad objective stated in the European Union’s development cooperation policy is to combat poverty and ultimately eradicate it. In order to combat poverty effectively, however, greater practical support must be provided and other policies for cooperation and fair trade must be promoted. We must also fight for equal rights for men and women and for women to play a greater role in the political sphere. At the Fourth World Conference on Women, held in Beijing in 1995, a clear agenda was established for the first time on promoting equal rights for women and men. In the European Union this led to Council Regulation (EC) No 2836/98 on integrating gender issues in development cooperation. In 2001, an action programme on mainstreaming gender equality in Community development cooperation was approved, but expires in 2006. This serves as the legal base for budget item B7-6220 (21.02.06) – ‘Promoting equality of men and women in the framework of development cooperation’. This expires on 31 December 2003, and will have to be replaced by this proposal, which the Commission was very late in submitting.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, mobility is a key concept in European policy, and globalisation is making it more and more important. The unfortunate reality is, however, that we have found, and are still finding, that Europe’s citizens are not yet as mobile as we would like them to be. One of the main reasons for the fact that mobility has not yet been completely achieved is a lack of transparency of qualifications and competences. The lack of transparency, as we all know, is the most important obstacle to mobility in terms of training and professional activity and a significant block to making the labour market in Europe more flexible. The Commission has now submitted the proposal for a uniform framework concept for the promotion of transparency of qualifications and competences – in brief, the Europass – which has been long awaited and ardently desired. This Commission proposal is an exceptionally good one, in that it makes it easier for citizens to gain access to opportunities for mobility. The Commission has already said that in the new Europass portfolio five existing opportunities for mobility will be combined, namely the European career structure, the addition to the diploma, the existing Europass for professional training and references and, also extremely important, the European language portfolio. As already mentioned, these instruments already exist. However, they were not yet appropriately visible to the public. That makes it extremely important that not only the existing instruments, but also the networks, be coordinated and rationalised. An agreed portfolio of documents has a greater communication impact than a loose collection of separate documents. The important thing, however, is that it is an open portfolio, and I believe there are two reasons for this. In the first place, citizens can search for documents that are relevant to them. Nobody has to wade through all five documents. Secondly, this open system enables further documents to be included in the portfolio. I have proposed here in my report that the next document to be included in this portfolio should be a certificate of computer competence. At this stage, I would like to thank everyone, the Presidency of the Council and the Commission, for their cooperation, which has indeed ensured that this proposal can rapidly proceed through all the bureaucratic hurdles. I believe that we all have an interest in ensuring that this proposal is implemented as rapidly as possible and that the Europass is made available to the public as early as possible.

Political group: PPE-DE
The wording in the joint resolution, which was agreed by everybody who was party to the joint resolution, is regional and lesser-used languages. That is what is used throughout the document.

Political group: PSE
A serious problem for society and food safety has been caused by the serious crises and scandals involving food products that have arisen in several countries in the European Union because of the use of methods aimed at making the maximum profit from food-producing activities at any cost, ignoring the interests of consumers. Therefore all the measures proposed to change the situation and protect consumers deserve our support, particularly the setting-up of a European food Safety Agency to analyse the risks scientifically, working in close collaboration with existing national agencies in this field and the main European consumers’ organisations. But we need to go further than this. We have to bear in mind the type of practices employed in farming and the food industry, the problem of imported foodstuffs, the composition of the ingredients of animal feedingstuffs, the maximum levels of dioxins and pesticide residues, food additives and other matters, giving priority to food safety. It is equally crucial that we support regional crops and products, family farming and rural development.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, the own-initiative report by Mrs Gröner is an important piece of work on equal opportunities in the European Parliament and gives us a good opportunity to decide if we can apply our proposals and recommendations for the Member States here in our own House. The report lists our entire acquis, everything we have applied and adopted in the European Parliament to date, such as the report by Mrs Lalumière. It also includes the European Commission’s good practices in promoting mainstreaming in its staffing policy. The most important aspect of this report is that it highlights the need for political will at all decision-making levels, in the administrative structure, in the Bureau, in the Conference of Presidents and in the functioning of the political groups, if we are to achieve better results in gender equality. It is true that gender equality needs to be entered on the agenda of all the institutions, because that is the only way the under-representation of women and the equality deficit will receive proper notice. The report contains interesting proposals for a social infrastructure, such as childcare facilities for members’ and employees’ children, which we feel is a sine qua non, together with other proposals relating to the presence of women and the impact this will have at all levels and on all policies applied in the European Parliament. This is an own-initiative report which does not impose a policy or commit us to specific measures. Nonetheless, we trust that it will provide ample opportunity for thought and will inspire us to adopt measures, now that the European Parliament is preparing to enlarge and to welcome representatives from the new Member States. We must not simply present the best possible image; we must also set an example for the new countries, without of course forgetting that many of the present Member States are still in need of advice and proposals on how to improve their parliamentary life and the operating mechanisms of their parliaments, in order to achieve equal representation between the sexes.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, I abstained in the voting on the Eurodac report. I did not vote for it because I do not find the procedure and a number of regulations acceptable. Of course I regret that people have not seized the opportunity of acquiring a wider consensus on this important issue. Because it is necessary for us to be able to take action against those who cross the borders of the European Union with criminal intentions and fingerprints may well offer a solution in this respect. This is why I have abstained in a number of crucial amendments, although I agree with the fundamental attitude of my group, who are unhappy about the fact that everyone is being tarred with the same brush.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should first like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Ayuso González, for tabling a really good report and for the excellent cooperation. I think that here too, on the issue of biofuels, Parliament is continuing to honour its cross-party commitment to promote renewable energies. It is good to know that in our efforts to do so we can usually count on the Commission's support. I have serious doubts, however – and that is putting it mildly – as to whether the Council feels the same commitment as does Parliament to our joint target of doubling the proportion of renewable energies in the total energy consumed by 2010. At the first reading, Parliament came out in favour of binding targets for increasing the use of biofuels. As with the directive on promoting electricity generation from renewable energy sources, this did not stand a chance in the Council. We have therefore agreed, as we did for the electricity directive, to indirect targets, with the option of moving to mandatory targets at a later stage if the actual rate of increase falls significantly short of the target set. The Council's intention to give the Member States a whole series of opportunities for setting their national targets at levels which diverge from the prescribed 5.75% by 2010 is unacceptable. I very much hope that the Commission will scrutinise the reasons for departing from the indicative targets, which the Member States will have to provide, in a really very critical light. Despite this critical assessment of the Council position, I can say on behalf of the Group of the that we will grit our teeth and vote in favour of the compromises contained in the Council position. Why? We want a shift towards renewable energies to be promoted in the fuel sector too so as to make a positive contribution to the necessary minimising of CO2 emissions, to reduce our dependence on oil and to give a boost to development in rural areas. To achieve this it is not only targets that we need; it is also crucial that the Member States should be able to give tax breaks to biofuels. At the moment – and I will be quite open about this – this is our only possible course of action because the Council actually has our backs up against a wall. If the promotion directive does not go through the codecision procedure in the form that the Council wishes, then the tax directive – this has been made clear to us – will not be adopted. I very much hope that the new European constitution will make such a situation impossible in the future. Despite the shortcomings that I have identified, I hope and indeed I am confident that this directive, together with the tax breaks, really will give a further boost to increasing the use of biofuels.

Political group: PSE
It was a positive step that at second reading of this draft directive it was recognised that traditional practice in public sector bodies with regard to the use of public sector information has developed in very disparate ways, and this should therefore be taken into consideration. It was also a positive step to recognise the right of any citizen, any natural or legal person residing in a Member State, to have access to European Parliament, Council and Commission documents. When adopting rules on the scope for commercial re-use of these documents, however, it must be ensured that it is not the market that sets prices. Allowing the market to set prices prevents them from rising excessively high, which is positive; however, it means that access to information by certain interested parties may be impaired. Hence, it is important that the Member States should find ways of making basic information available free of charge, ensuring that it is accessible to all, especially via the Internet and other accessible means, and paying particular attention to people with disabilities. - Report Read (A5-0269/2003)

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, for a minute I wondered whether Mr van Dam had come to the wrong debate, but I am glad that he turned his attention to Northern hake. I congratulate the rapporteur on his report. Mr Souchet is one of the most hard-working members of the Committee on Fisheries and his expertise in this area has earned him the accolade of being appointed rapporteur on the recovery of southern hake, a report which is currently in the pipeline. During our deliberations in committee, it was repeatedly stated that the advice we received from ICES – the International Council for the Exploration of the Seas – in respect of stocks of Northern hake was at odds with the advice of fishermen. Indeed, the fishermen claimed that hake stocks were not in a state of terminal decline, as stated by the scientists. Once again, this divergence of opinion has demonstrated the need for fishermen and scientists to work together in the preparation of management strategies. It is also clear that the Commission must be prepared to listen to the advice of fishermen as well as to the dire warnings of scientists. In this respect, I am delighted that plans for the creation of Regional Advisory Councils, which Mr Varela Suanzes-Carpegna mentioned, will bring together fishermen and scientists. These plans are well under way and constitute an essential part of the CFP reform package. Had an RAC been in place in this instance, I do not think we would have had the original recommendations for drastic cuts in hake TACs combined with severe effort limitation targets which the Commission proposed and which have shocked the members of the Committee on Fisheries. Cuts as proposed would have devastated the sector and caused widespread socio-economic hardship. I am glad that the Commission has revised these proposals in the wake of strong representations from the sector. We all support sustainable fishing. We all have an interest in seeing the long-term recovery of Northern hake. However, we also have a duty to sustain the livelihood of fishermen and to protect fishing communities. A balance therefore has to be struck which links best practice to achievable socio-economic goals. So, despite what Mrs McKenna said, I believe that Mr Souchet has sought to achieve that balance and I commend his report to the House.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, I would ask, with reference to Article 110a, to take the floor in connection with the reading of my report, for the session services reject the possibility of adding to the report the answer I obtained from the Council during the reading by the committee. I am therefore forced to take the floor now instead. What is at issue here is Mr Tony Bunyan’s complaint to the Ombudsman, the outcome of which is a success for Parliament, the Ombudsman and Mr Bunyan. Through our work, a long conflict between the institutions about what characterises a document, as distinct from more incidental papers, was resolved. The Council had refused to give the complainant access to documentation on the grounds that the documents were ephemeral or only reflected the views of individuals. (The President cut off the speaker)

Political group: ELDR