GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Mr President, Commissioner Liikanen, ladies and gentlemen, before starting on my speech on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, I want to express our very sincere and warm thanks to the rapporteur, Mrs Read. We have been working against the clock and we have been dealing with an excellent and supportive fellow Member, who has been very open to accepting all the points our committee wanted to raise in this important debate. Many thanks for your report and your skill, Mrs Read. The Committee on Employment and Social Affairs has welcomed the Commission’s very important initiative, e-Europe, for the Special European Council to be held in Lisbon on 23 and 24 March, with support and optimism. We naturally applaud the Commission’s aim of making the information society benefit all sectors and all regions but now, with the Commissioner here, we also have the opportunity to consider the citizens’ viewpoint and remind the Commission and the public that rhetoric in announcing objectives and expressing desires is not enough. We want these words transformed as firmly as possible into specific objectives and precise financial commitments, because that is the only way to get a real strategy covering every aspect of the information society. And the strategy will only be of use to the weakest groups and individuals, and those who are most at risk of exclusion from the new society, if there are concrete commitments. No doubt the Commission has the noblest intentions, but, looked at from the viewpoint of the workers and the least advantaged people, it still has not answered the questions this Parliament has raised in many documents, for example, the report on the Green Paper entitled “Living and Working in the Information Society: People First”. We still do not have much idea of who is going to finance the massive programme to teach basic digital literacy which Europe needs to close the gap with the United States. We do not have much idea of how the responsibilities can be divided between governments and Commission, or what role trade unions and civil society can play. So we want supplementary analyses taken into account, we want firmer commitments, we want a specific point about strengthening employment and social cohesion in the information society – because there is nothing about that in the Commission’s communication – and we want a strategy with guidelines, recommendations and indicators. We want adults mentioned, not just young people, we want disadvantaged groups mentioned and we want you to remember equality of opportunity too. The new society must not exacerbate inequality between men and women. Commissioner, there are great opportunities here, but they must reach all the people. And we want the European social model to be defended. So we are asking for a step forward, with more specific commitments and far more adequate political and financial efforts.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, with the enlargement of the European Union the border we share with Russia will lengthen and we will have several new neighbours. Our new neighbours are also likely to apply for membership and enlargement will continue. It is very important for us all that our external border is both open and secure. No new barriers must be put up in Europe that would be a hindrance to relations and cooperation with other countries. We also have to level out the economic and social differences that exist between the Member States and our neighbouring countries. This is especially important for Member States situated on external borders. As enlargement proceeds we have to establish a new policy for a larger Europe, one that incorporates both bilateral relations with our present and future neighbours and developments in multilateral cooperation, for example, within the context of the Council of Europe and the EEC. This morning some Members of the European Parliament were trying to lecture Members of Parliament of the new Member States, saying they must be prepared to give up their own country’s right of self-determination and accept that the Union will develop into a supranational federation. I do not agree with such points of view. An enlarging Union must be a democratic confederation of independent states led by a Council of Ministers that represents the Member States.

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, the Commission and others have predicted that most Member States will not achieve their targets for limiting greenhouse gas emissions in line with the commitments under the Kyoto Protocol, so it is essential that effective measures are implemented now. Failure to reach the targets is simply not an option. One estimate says that 10,000 people have been killed in the past two years because of the effects of climate change, the majority of them in the developing countries. We need a radical change of direction. We can, and must, adopt effective and innovative solutions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and at the same time protect our society and our jobs. Wales, which is the constituency I represent, is very dependent on manufacturing and heavy industry. Because the UK is introducing a climate change levy next April, I commissioned research on the effects of this on industry in my own constituency. The evidence suggests that not only could it keep Britain on track to meet its emissions target, but the levy could actually encourage a small increase in employment. Several economists have analysed the effects of this on a Europe-wide level, and have come to similar conclusions that there is, or could be, a beneficial effect on employment. The debate has moved on and we need to look at reducing emissions, not as a threat, but as a challenge and an opportunity. I hope Parliament's demands which are set out in the reports before us are acted upon and that governments approach The Hague Conference in a positive way so we can see the Kyoto Protocol ratified in the near future.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, the United Nations inspectors in Iraq are doing a good job. If they find undeclared chemical or biological weapons, they have the right to destroy them. If they do not find any, their duty is to pass on this information. While this process is underway and provided that it produces the anticipated result, Iraq does not represent a threat to anyone. In its current situation, it would not even dare to set off a firecracker. There is therefore no reason to instigate a pre-emptive war. In the next few days, the States of the European Union therefore have a pressing duty to prevent unilateral military action in defiance of international law. Resolution 1441 excludes automatic recourse to the use of force. It is a shame, therefore, that the ladies and gentlemen of the should have chosen to be ambiguous on this fundamental point. Have they not read the statement from the Episcopalian conference of German bishops, which says, and I quote: ‘a pre-emptive war is an attack and cannot be considered a just war’? I do not think the bishops have been manipulated by Saddam Hussein. Have our fellow Members in the not understood the churches’ call to try everything to prevent a pre-emptive war which, and I quote: ‘would remove all content from the principle of non-recourse to force laid down by international law and at the end of the day would weaken the whole system of the Community between the States’? The s cannot express better than the bishops what they think of the war cries from the Washington hawks. There is still time for the Christian-Democrat Members to recover, tomorrow, at the vote, and I am sure that Mr Morillon, who is a reasonable man, will use all his powers of persuasion. (Applause)

Political group: PSE
Mr President, for the cool and collected, the year 2000 is of course a year like any other, but it is not only romantics who, at the beginning of a new century, cannot escape a certain magic inspiring them to rise above the daily round of business and approach their own future in a creative spirit. I very much regret, Commissioner Barnier, that the preparatory work for the Intergovernmental Conference contains no trace of that turn-of-the-century magic and of an ability to entertain new visions. I also regret that, quite unlike the panegyrics delivered in this House, the deliberations of the Committee of Wise Men revealed no such visionary courage either. When it came to the whys and wherefores of reforming the European institutions, reference was made to the technocratic concepts of increased efficiency and the ability to act, but not so much as a glance was directed towards the very urgent and necessary matter of establishing a European democracy. The Committee of Wise Men wastes not a word of criticism on the second and third pillars of this democratic no-man’s land of intergovernmental cooperation. Nor does it hazard any proposal to include this area among those which are to be subject to democratic reform. Nor is any thought wasted on the Intergovernmental Conference as a method, which we now all know is in no position to bring the European idea any closer to fruition. Involving Parliament is, in truth, not one of its concerns. Nor does the report of the Committee of Wise Men contain a single mention of the social dimension of the European Union, which is a prerequisite of a European democracy. On the question of foreign and security policy, the report wastes a lot of time on developing security policy, as well as policies for governments and heads of state, and forgets in the process that security policy is a function of foreign policy. (Applause)

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, I understand that there is now no possibility of voting on the Theorin and Smet reports. I would therefore like to recommend that the vote on these reports be postponed until the November II part-session.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, money does not smell, as the Romans would say. The important thing is for money to generate more money. This is the only opportunity that we have to see to it that the interests of economists converge with those of people who want to earn money and have their mind set on dollars, like Disney’s Scrooge McDuck, who has dollar signs for eyes, except in this case the symbol is that of the euro. In this we are combining the interests of these citizens with the interests of pensioners who want to live life in tranquillity. For example, my brother-in-law, who lives in Rome, started drawing his pension a year ago and every day since – from seven in the morning when he wakes until midnight – he has checked the TV screen to see how the pensions funds and the securities in which he has invested are performing. Pensioners will, in the future – as is already happening – have enormous sums of money at their disposal. Indeed, whilst the young are penniless, the elderly have accumulated money and, since they are keen to turn it to good advantage, harbour great hopes for this directive. If national governments had in their hearts – as the European Union has in its heart with this directive – the proliferation of money earned during the course of a working life, the pensions time bomb would already have been defused. You too, in your role, Commissioner Bolkestein, have a very great responsibility for the future of the elderly and of pensioners, a future that I hope will improve once we have finalised this directive, by which I mean very soon, as has been proposed by Mrs Villiers and Mrs Kauppi.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, I would invite Parliament to avail itself of Article 69(2) of the Rules of Procedure and refer the report back to committee to pursue negotiations with the Commission. What the Commissioner has just said amounts to insisting on the word 'possibly' remaining in the text. In other words, the Commission would 'possibly' take account of Parliament's objections and the Commission would 'possibly' amend its text to take account of our views. That would be unacceptable to Parliament and I therefore ask for the report to be referred back to committee. (Applause)

Political group: PSE
Mr President, in the last few years the EU has, of course, been given more and more significant powers in the social area, but it has not been given an awful lot of money for solving social problems. As long as the Member States are of the basic opinion that social issues should be dealt with by the Member States themselves, there will be no rapid change. We are, of course, aware that those funds which do exist are strictly budgeted for and that it is difficult to move funds around within the budget. It is difficult to meet new needs while the Member States have this attitude. For these reasons, I believe that it is particularly important for those of us who work in the EU institutions to concentrate on according much greater importance than we have until now to the non-governmental public organisations in Europe operating in the social sphere. I am sure everyone can see that there is a need for transnational activities in the social sphere, too. There is, therefore, a place for non-governmental organisations. It would, however, be unfortunate, and that is perhaps the way the Member States see it, if the non-governmental social organisations were to be strongly bound, financially and politically, to the EU – more so than they are already becoming. Their worth lies precisely in the fact that they are non-governmental and civic and are able to see social problems from a different perspective than the authorities. In that way, they constitute a complement or alternative to the Commission, the Council and Parliament. I will take the opportunity to make a suggestion, despite there not being many people listening (there are only around six MEPs in the House). I propose that the Commission try to set up a European fund for this purpose with the non-governmental organisations in the social sphere. I propose that the Commission turn to the Council and the Member States to try to get them to contribute to such a fund. This fund ought to be set up as an independent institution whose board of directors is made up of people from the social organisations themselves, together with researchers and experts in the social sphere. One might imagine that such an organisation would escape some of the bureaucratic problems. Financial supervision could be exercised by professional auditors. I believe that if we set to work on a task like this with a certain diplomatic tactfulness, the Member States would react positively to the proposal. I also believe that all other parties – the socially disadvantaged, the non-governmental organisations, the Member States and the EU institutions – would all be very pleased with such an institution.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, honourable new Members, I will cut straight to the point. Lorries are at their most environmentally friendly when they are off the road. We must therefore focus more on transport prevention. The Marco Polo programme only deals with other transport, not less transport. A programme such as Marco Polo must be more ambitious than the current draft. This ambition must also translate into projects geared towards preventing transport. The European Union's aim is to grow annually in economic terms. However, this economic growth goes hand in hand with a growing demand in transport, and what is worse is that this demand for transport now even exceeds economic growth. The correlation between economic growth and transport growth is tragic on different levels The European economy will in this way become increasingly less transport efficient. We drive more miles to achieve the same economic results, with more traffic jams and accidents to boot. Secondly, the sudden increase in mileage requires an enormous amount of fossil fuels and causes ecological and social damage. I take issue with the rapporteur's remarks about the doubtfulness surrounding the calculation of external costs and the increasing eco-efficiency of road transport. It is true that the performance of individual lorries is improving, but they are doing more miles. This increase in miles negates the profit gained from using an economical and clean engine. Journeys must be avoided and economic growth must be disconnected from transport growth. We therefore insist that projects aimed at transport prevention also be given scope within a programme such as Marco Polo and should not be discounted from the outset. Marco Polo is a very important project to us. We would like to see Marco Polo become more ambitious and it should, therefore, also offer opportunities to projects in which transport of this kind is avoided, for that is true innovation.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, I should also like to thank the rapporteur for a sound and well-balanced report which expresses the greater number of common interests there are between the EU and China today. China is in all respects becoming a more and more important player on the world stage, and that also applies in the combating of terrorism where we must appreciate China’s active support for this serious struggle. The Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party wants to see a democratic China that respects the principles of a free market, human rights and the rule of law. We also want China to fulfil the Copenhagen Criteria. There is no reason why these criteria should be confined to applying only within the borders of Europe. The Group has tabled a list of amendments, all designed to tighten up the report a little. The most important issue for us in this context is the One China policy. We are all familiar with this, and we know why it exists. As liberals, we are not proud of the One China policy, because it impedes development in a country that respects democracy, social pluralism and constitutional principles – namely Taiwan. The Group believes that the will and desires of Taiwan must be respected and that the China policy is an obstacle to their being so. We also believe that the European Parliament is the right place from which to send this signal, and it is therefore up to our governments to follow our advice. Last year, the President of Taiwan, Chen Shui-bian, was awarded the Liberal International Freedom Prize. Unfortunately, no EU country would also give him a visa so that he himself could collect it. His wife instead collected it, here in this House in November. Nonetheless, we should like to express our dissatisfaction with the fact that the Member States do not comply with their obligations to respect the President of Taiwan’s basic right to travel freely. The Olympic Games are to be held in China in 2008. That decision has been taken and is not to be altered, but let us take this opportunity to demand that China use this opportunity to demonstrate that it will comply with all the international standards and conventions relating to human rights. Recently, China has employed a practice whereby children born in mainland China are separated from their parents in Hong Kong. That is an infringement of human rights that is very much to be censured, and we will therefore demand that the Chinese Government stop this practice immediately and begin reunifying families so that parents in Hong Kong can be together with their children. I would again thank Mr Graça Moura for a thorough and well-considered report which aims at a more effective EU policy on the China issue.

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would firstly like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Dary, who has given us such a full explanation of the reform, its history and development – which I am not going to repeat. I would also like to congratulate Mr Fernández, who has made such good use of his time to make us consider the fact that we have a series of commitments to fulfil. The Dary report is a difficult and intricate piece of work which is worthy of praise, and has allowed us to unanimously approve a report on a truly complex issue. Commissioner, it is frankly no easy task to bring together the interests of consumers with those of producers, as well as respecting the European Union’s international commitments to the ACP countries and the Lomé commitments signed in Cotonou, and also to combine efforts in favour of the outermost regions, while respecting the GATT rules for third countries and safeguarding diversity in European Union supply and production. The workings of the compromise that has been reached, which comes within the WTO rules, must be studied by the European Commission in a report which will have to be studied by Parliament within a reasonable time limit and, in accordance with the result of that report and the study made of it, the appropriate corrective measures will have to be proposed, as Mr Dary’s report suggests. We are not opposed to the ‘tariff only’ system, Commissioner, we only wish, given these sudden changes, to take the necessary precautions when it comes to making the leap from one system to another. I therefore ask the Members of this House to endorse this report in its entirety, as did the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development. I am not going to say again that amendments such as the only one tabled by a certain Member do not help to achieve this. I, like the previous speaker, therefore ask that this amendment be withdrawn.

Political group: PPE-DE
The rapporteur in his introduction said that the objective is to implement the Dublin Convention and have a system of fingerprinting. My group agrees in principle with that, but we want some safeguards. Mr Pirker also said that the purpose was to ensure that there are no social abuses of the system. Again, my group would agree with that, but we want to make certain of this, which is why safeguards are necessary to ensure that there are no abuses by the authorities either. I believe that there are some on the right of this House who wish to muddy the waters and to draw no distinction between asylum seekers and illegal immigrants, third country nationals. I shy away from the use of the word 'foreigners', or indeed the word that was used in the translation of the English text. In English 'aliens' are people from another planet and to be perfectly honest we do not have much of a problem with that at the moment. There seem to be, though, Members of this House who have no sympathy with either group – and if there were aliens from another planet, they would probably have little sympathy with them either. The safeguards and the amendments that we are asking for are designed to ensure that any data collected is processed properly and that where people are granted asylum or achieve legitimate status the data collected is deleted. On the age limit, it is sometimes very difficult to tell the age of a young person, but there seems to be a consensus that 18 is a fair compromise. Mrs McKenna in her impassioned speech a few moments ago said that we must ensure that asylum seekers and others are not treated as criminals. Certainly we want to ensure that this new system is used to assist the most vulnerable in our society. I accept, as I am sure we all must do, that people do not leave their homes and families and travel half-way across Europe thousands of miles away for no reason at all. They do not do just it on a whim, they do it for a real reason and we must accept and respect the fact that they need support and they need help and assistance. I hope – and I am sure the Commissioner is listening – we can make certain that when this system comes into full operation, it is used positively, humanely and with considerable compassion to help and support the most vulnerable in our society.

Political group: PSE