GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Commissioner, as you will be aware, there is a priority project, one of those approved at the Essen Council, on the trans-European networks, relating to the high-speed South-Europe rail connection, and one branch of this project is intended to link the French city of Dax with Vitoria: Dax in the region of Aquitaine and Vitoria in the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country. Both the region of Aquitaine and the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country wish to promote this project and face difficulties in terms of understanding and application on the part of the respective central governments of the French and Spanish States. These two regions wish to move it ahead and I am trying to ensure that within the European Union this cross-border cooperation can be accepted. I would therefore ask you the following specific question: is this instrument, which you have told us we may possibly have after the summer, going to relate just to European regional policy funds or can it also be extended to European funds for trans-European transport networks and any other type of actions with Community resources?

Political group: Verts-ALE
Madam President, I should like to congratulate the Council and the Commission on the progress made at Tampere in so many areas and I would like to associate myself with the remarks made earlier by my Liberal Democrat colleague Baroness Ludford. In the short time I have available I would like to touch on two issues. The first is the position of non-nationals, the many millions of our fellow human beings not citizens of the Union but either legally resident here or being offered asylum. I welcome some of the progress that was made at Tampere: for instance, on giving them comparable rights and on the fight against racism and xenophobia. If we are talking about creating an area of freedom, security and justice, however, we must recognise that these are the people to whom justice is most regularly denied. They are still too often associated with criminals. Racist urban youths are a social embarrassment but racist policemen are a major social hazard. I welcome legal aid and greater information to citizens on legal systems and I recognise that progress can be made on mutual recognition of judicial decisions. Nonetheless, we need common high standards of judicial competence and I hope that we will see more work done in this area. We need protection of victims and the right to compensation; but we also need a recognition of the rights of defendants if we are to live in a decent society. The second point I would like to touch on is the involvement of citizens. The President-in-Office made much of the increased efficiency and transparency that Tampere has brought. He talked about this being key if the Union is to win the trust of its citizens. He talked of “opening up” the Council to public scrutiny and looking at other reforms. He hoped that the Finnish presidency would leave a lasting impression on the Union in this regard. As chairman of the Committee on Citizens’ Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, I would like to suggest to the President-in-Office that more recognition be given to the role of this Parliament in dealing with citizens. The European Parliament could have been invited at a working level to many more of the debates surrounding the Tampere summit. The presidency could have sent a representative to our committee to come and talk about the results of that summit. Does the presidency recognise the legitimacy of the European Parliament or is it somehow running scared of our participation? I have a message for the presidency: relax – come and discuss with us. I hope we will be able to prove to you through our work in the body that will draw up the Charter of Fundamental Human and Social Rights that the presidency and Parliament can work very well together. I hope that, as we proceed in this area where so often Parliament must work directly with the Council, we will see much more effective cooperation between us. I hope we will move from the somewhat stilted process of government by summit to more government at working level. (Applause)

Political group: ELDR
Madam President, I would like to thank our rapporteur for his open-mindedness in drawing up this report. The assent we are going to give on the amendment of the Act concerning the election of representatives to the European Parliament is part of a strategy of small steps. A small step is better than nothing but, quite frankly, the text should have been better. Why are the ideas of mixed voting and of transnational lists combined with proportional lists in a regional context not accepted? If we want to establish a European public space, we need to bring to life political parties that have a goal, that of electing the representatives of the peoples of Europe to the European Parliament. If we want to bring to life the concept of European citizenship, this public space needs to be fed with elected representatives, on a basis of transnational constituencies contributing to the appointment of a Commission president. With regard to equality, I believe the decision could have been bolder and could have proposed a rule of equality for European elections. On the matter of privileges and immunity, I regret that this amendment of the Act does not make any progress possible when, indeed, we are experiencing difficulties due to the absence of European rules in this field on a daily basis. Lastly, I would like us to agree on the designation. We should be referred to as 'European Members of Parliament' or 'Members of the European Parliament', not 'representatives' or 'Members'. All that remains is to hope that this small step will lead to further small steps when the Act is re-examined or within the context of the work of the Convention.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, as rapporteur of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, I should first of all like to congratulate Bulgaria on the progress made: 26 chapters have been completed, six others are still open, but much more remains to be done about the prospects for investment; this will involve establishing a transparent and unambiguous business climate, so that businesses know that their investments are safe and cannot be lost as a result of corruption. As regards the nuclear power station at Kozloduy, I should like to say the following. If it transpires from the inspection carried out in November 2003, that all the recommendations of the Atomic Question Group have been carried out, the Commission can consider postponing the closure of Kozloduy 3 and 4 for a little while longer. If, however, this is not the case, the Commission needs to adhere to the agreed time schedule for the closure of units 3 and 4. There is far more concern within the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy with regard to Romania. Despite all the Romanian Government's efforts, we have to conclude that, to this day, that country has no functioning market economy. In practice, much more is yet to be done in order to eradicate corruption and implement structural reforms in a tangible and consistent manner. Romania's route to the European Union is difficult on account of the late start to privatisation, the late reform of state-owned businesses and the fact that its investment climate still leaves a great deal to be desired. Romania’s lack of appeal to foreign investors is another reason why the rule of law should, as a matter of urgency, be further developed in the area of Romania's economy. It is necessary to create a culture in which responsibility is accepted and laws applied. We therefore very much welcome the proposal in the Brok committee's report for a re-orientation exercise and, at the same time, for more attention to be given to problems relating to the rule of law. There is also a need for core sectors such as energy, mining and transport to be restructured. All in all, Romania still has a huge effort to make.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, I can tell you that it is a long time since the Danish people have heard so much about the EU as they have in the last few weeks, and that is something for which we can thank Commissioner Monti His work opposing cartels has been front page news for a couple of weeks. It has been thoroughly debated on television and radio, and it has led to debates within the population and in the Danish parliament. That is something for which I would thank the Commissioner, and I have observed that there has been support in all quarters for what the Commissioner has done. We can therefore say that competition law has been accorded an important place in the Danish consciousness. That is something for which I would thank you. In connection with Amendment No 10, there have been discussions between the Commissioner and his employees and, especially, between myself and my own employees. We have observed the need for the Commission to be given access to all papers if the Commission is effectively to be able to make use of its powers and go after those cartels which do not comply with the laws. I agree that that is necessary, but company managements and boards need their experts to be able to give them proper, independent advice without those experts having to fear that, if something subsequently goes wrong because either board or management acts against their advice, this will entail an increased penalty. I have understood from Commissioner Monti and his colleagues that this is a view he shares and, as Mr Evans has said, the Group of the European People’s Party will therefore vote against Amendment No 10 if the Commissioner submits such an opinion. I would thank the Commissioner for his sound cooperation and for the fine work which he can be relied upon to carry out and which is of enormous importance, especially for small countries.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, I too have voted in favour of the Stenmarck report. This report makes it abundantly clear that more than one third of our budget disappears into the ridiculous travelling circus between the three chairs of the European Parliament. The costs, however, are not only financial. Needless to say, it is a total nightmare from an organisational point of view too. The French Government has decided that Air France should not operate any direct flights between Amsterdam and Strasbourg, so to get here is a disaster on its own. It is apparently possible to build a TGV to Disneyland but not to Strasbourg. The biggest problem with the travelling circus, however, is political. As Parliament, we must monitor the Commission and the Council, but they are based in Brussels. This simply undermines our political credibility, and we must settle this matter as an absolute priority. Needless to say, we should try to do this before the enlargement, for then we will still be able to give the French something else by way of compensation. I am prepared to strike a good deal on this. The Convention should now make this a priority, so that this ridiculous travelling circus is done away with.

Political group: ELDR
The EPLP voted against amendments concerning taxation changes and abstained on the final vote, consistent with its attitude on taxation. - Souchet report (A5-0289/2003)

Political group: PSE
My VVD delegation was and is in favour of the enlargement of the European Union by the addition of the twelve countries with which we are currently negotiating, particularly for historic, economic and politico-strategic reasons (such as, among other things, stability along the eastern border and democracy throughout Europe). We are voting for the accession of Malta, Slovenia, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Poland. The big bang was an unjust procedure that put unnecessary pressure on the internal cohesion of the Union as well as on the objective assessment of the candidate Member States. We must not choose this way again in future, not even with a small bang. Every candidate Member State must be evaluated on its own merits. As soon as Bulgaria and Romania are ready, they must accede without having to wait for the others. As far as we are concerned, therefore, accession before or after 2007 is indeed possible. With regard to the accession of other countries such as Croatia or Turkey, the institutional form of the European Union will first have to be adapted (efficiency, transparency and democratic control) before they can be considered. No promises can therefore be made until the Intergovernmental Conference has been brought to a satisfactory conclusion.

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, I too would like to thank the two rapporteurs for the contribution they have made with this report. I would, however, like to focus in particular on Mrs Avilés Perea’s report, for I feel that, as has already been said, the annual report is a genuinely important instrument which allows us all to follow up, assess and monitor the initiatives undertaken by the Union and the Member States and the coherence of these initiatives with the global legislation and strategy defined at Union level. As the rapporteurs have already said, although the 2000 report does record some progress, it reveals a Europe which is still a hostile environment for women and which is, in many respects, a long way from achieving the goal of equal opportunities: the female unemployment rate is higher than the male unemployment rate, the employment rate is still a long way off the goal set at Lisbon, the labour market is still segregated, women continue to be heavily under-represented in positions of responsibility and, above all, there is a pay gap which is frankly scandalous considering that this is Europe in the third millennium. With the Community framework strategy on equal opportunities, the mainstreaming of the gender dimension and the Community equal opportunities policy as a whole, we are heading in the right direction. In particular, I feel that the 2002 employment guidelines and the amending of the directive on access to employment and training, which were successfully completed in conciliation last week, the directive on gender equality based on Article 13, in the context of which I, like Mrs Fraisse, feel that we should call more strongly for the individualisation of rights – a directive which the Commission is to present shortly – and the programmes combating violence against women and trafficking are new, important elements which fill gaps in the overall strategy. However, we need to do more. With regard to the pay gap between men and women, the under-representation of women in positions of responsibility and the balanced participation of women and men in decision-making processes, we need to be more forceful in making everyone – the social partners, the political organisations, the institutions and the Member States – shoulder their responsibilities, and we should maybe introduce more effective instruments that provide better incentives than those used hitherto.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, the own-initiative report by our fellow Member Mrs Mann makes a particularly interesting contribution to the fascinating debate on the relationship between regionalism and multilateralism. I am very much in favour of the multilateral approach, but I also remain convinced that regionalism and multilateralism can strengthen and supplement each other in many respects. I agree with the rapporteur when she says that the European Union must also continue to support and promote regional cooperation and integration in the future, therefore. In addition, the idea of using the establishment of free trade areas as instruments of development seems to me to be a very interesting train of thought, provided that they form part of a general package of reform measures. I should like to point out, however, that, for the benefit of the developing countries, we have to beware of ending up in an inextricable tangle of regional and multilateral initiatives. In my view, today the multilateral approach still deserves to take priority over regional initiatives. In other words, the top priority of the European Union must at this moment be the successful conclusion of the Doha Development Agenda. The discussion on regionalism and multilateralism, as important as it is, must be postponed until then. In any case, Mrs Mann’s report constitutes an interesting contribution to this, and for this I thank her.

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, on behalf of my group I should like to say I was disappointed to see that Amendment 6 from the Committee went through. This whole directive was really about cross-border legal aid. To take the whole cross-border element out, and to try and look at the whole question of harmonising legal aid throughout the European Union, is – in my opinion and that of my Group – bound to lead to one hell of a muddle. If we had stuck to the Liberal amendment and had concentrated solely on cross-border legal aid cases, then I think we could have had a workable document in front of us today. Unfortunately we do not. However, that being said, we did ultimately vote for the directive. There are other parts in it which we feel we can support, and we leave the Council of Ministers, hopefully, to sort out the bits that unfortunately went through.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, I am going to raise a point of order; please do not take this off my speaking time. I have noticed that Mr Gemelli, the Chairman of the Committee on Petitions, was scheduled to speak on the last report. Those of us who are in the other building have a small problem: the screens do not work and we cannot see how long it is until the debate on the report on which we are supposed to speak. Mr President, I would like you, who are so closely involved in the efficient operation of the buildings, to see to it that the screens are working when we have meetings in the other building, because I am certain that Mr Gemelli did not realise that his turn to speak had arrived.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, this report calls for and promotes European cinematographic works, in particular, and other audiovisual works as well. Therefore – as I have said on other occasions – maybe we will have European filmmaking at last. However, I mean that there should also be a film about the European Parliament, where the main characters are the leading players at the European Parliament. Thus, maybe we could have Commissioner Monti as a detective. The chauffeur would be Mr Vatanen and President Prodi would, of course, be the parish priest. Then Mr Watson would be the rector of the college, Mrs Reding would be the faithful wife, you, Vice-President Provan, could only be the Scottish millionaire and, lastly, Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel would be the beautiful blonde. So whodunnit? Maybe Mr Fatuzzo!

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, where Mr Titley’s report in general is concerned, I basically share the points of view presented by Mrs Morgantini and others. I shall here simply discuss a quite special issue concerning the draft resolution. Recital R of the report talks about the ... ‘development of a common defence policy in the context of the CFSP and the establishment of a European Security and Defence Identity within NATO’, and paragraph 1 e talks about the EU’s weapons policy’s having to ‘contribute to the development of a Common Defence Policy’. Mr President, these are wordings which have to be totally unacceptable to those Member States which are non-aligned and which want to remain so. That applies to my own country, Sweden, and I accept that it also applies to other non-aligned States within the EU. Sweden does not believe that activity within CFSP can be described as a defence policy because it does not involve any common defence obligation corresponding to NATO’s paragraph 5. CFSP covers crisis management activity outside the EU’s borders and nothing which can be described as a common defence policy. Sweden participates actively, too actively I am inclined to say, in the development of a common weapons policy, but that is something different. The situation is not improved by Mr Titley’s writing about a common defence identity within NATO. As is well-known, Sweden is not a member of NATO. Nor, as far as I know, does it have any intentions of becoming a member. All Swedish Members of the European Parliament obviously have to vote against the two above-mentioned wordings, and I also expect Parliament as a whole to reject them. If that were not to happen, the Swedish Government would, of course, have to lodge a protest against Parliament’s openly repudiating Sweden’s non-aligned status.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, the Vatican is not immediately known for its progressive view of sexuality. Not only does contraception give women throughout the world control over their own bodies, but condoms could also save the lives of tens of thousands of people in the African countries hit by AIDS. The Vatican opposes such measures. It is also trying to stop women who have been raped in Bosnia, for example, from having access to abortions. Against this background, it is extremely shocking to study the report showing how Catholic priests have committed acts of cruelty and actually raped nuns and other women. This is something the Vatican has known about since 1994, but it has tried to play down what has happened and silenced the women when they have tried to speak out or been forced to have abortions. A number of them have also reportedly been infected with AIDS. This is no isolated incident. It has happened in at least 23 countries, and there is only one word to summarise what has happened, and that – emphatically – is ‘disgraceful’. The Vatican must lose no time in punishing those responsible, apologise to the women affected, investigate properly what happened and publish the report in its entirety.

Political group: ELDR
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the draft directive put before us today marks a great leap forwards in the realisation of our European Community, for it will be through EU citizens enjoying freedom of movement that we will achieve our objective. What the directive has in mind is that journeys by EU citizens between the Member States should be subject to the same conditions as those undertaken within individual Member States, in other words, the intention is to demolish the remaining barriers and surmount the bureaucratic and political hurdles and obstacles that block the way to freedom of movement. This leads me, on behalf of the Group of the , to emphatically endorse the Commission proposal and the refinements and modifications that our esteemed rapporteur has made to it. Such is our objective towards which we are journeying, and I am convinced that we can reach that objective providing that certain conditions are complied with. I was disappointed by the way in which certain Members, in this debate on the great issue of freedom of movement, focussed their attention, to the exclusion of all else, on the definition of what we are meant to mean by ‘family’. Although this is just a small part of the whole, and needs to be discussed, we should bid farewell to the view that a select few know what is meant by ‘family’, and that their definition should be imposed on all other Members of this House or on the Member States. That is not acceptable. We should arrive at a compromise, and do so by accepting the fact that the various states have different conceptions of this and make different arrangements for it. What we should not be doing is allowing the few to take it upon themselves to impose their concept and definition of the family on all the other states. If we can manage to stand back and arrive at consensus by accepting individual Member States' diverse arrangements, this proposal will win acceptance by a broad majority. In the interests of EU citizens' freedom of movement, I appeal to all those who have introduced these proposals to follow where reason leads. (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, I would like to point out that someone has just been taking photographs from up there, with the evident intention of discrediting a lady MEP. I ask that the photographer should have his camera taken off him and the pictures confiscated.

Political group: PSE