GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen. Essentially, the debate we are having today might appear to be merely technical: what status will the Charter have in the constitution that will come out of the Convention? This debate poses a question that is absolutely essential from a political standpoint: what are we to do about the debate on citizenship within this Convention? Fortunately, our Charter does not simply address citizenship, but also represents, for our fellow citizens, an essential reference point, and from the beginning of this process, we have said that the Convention must aim for a more democratic, more comprehensible, more transparent Europe. What our fellow citizens are asking is to be able to feel that they are European citizens. It seems to me that the tool currently available to us to make citizenship come alive is the Charter. So let us incorporate it. Parliament has already requested this many times, and will do so again in voting for Mr Duff’s Report. I believe this is a prerequisite for the work of the Convention to be accepted. The question is knowing how to incorporate it. My concern, personally, is that this incorporation would confer first-rung status on the Charter in the hierarchy of European texts. This basically means that when one sector or another needs to lay down provisions in its field, it must respect the spirit and the letter of the Charter. The question of a revision therefore arises, and we know that this is a debate that has caused much concern, including when the work of the previous Convention was concluded. Like most of us here, I believe that the current Convention does not have the authority to re-open this text, and I also believe that this would be politically inappropriate. The main thing is to check how this revision could take place, because there is no reason to imagine that these texts are written in stone. We ourselves, in drawing up this Charter, took a few liberties with the text of the European Convention on Human Rights, due to the need to adapt and modernise it. Let us imagine that our successors might also need to adapt the text: this would have to take place in the same conditions in which we ourselves wrote this text. Basically, the Charter could only be revised according to the most restrictive rules proposed by the Convention. My group and I have tabled an amendment to this end and I hope that Parliament will be able to adopt it when voting on Mr Duff’s Report. I shall end with two brief comments. First, I am anxious to know whether the debate – which is theoretically technical – on the so-called ‘horizontal’ clauses runs the risk of limiting the scope of the Charter. This should be our common approach: no reduction of the Charter’s scope. Lastly, of course, I would like to express my support of the European Union’s signing up to the European Convention on Human Rights, on my own behalf and on behalf of my group. In this way we will have a complete set of measures to protect the rights of our citizens and our residents.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, Secretary of State Colin Powell and President George Bush are both in Europe this week: Colin Powell to meet with EU Foreign Ministers and President Bush on a state visit to Britain. I hope that the Foreign Ministers and Prime Minister Blair will impress on their guests the need for transatlantic understanding to flow both ways. Europeans are rightly alarmed at the unilateralist policies of the US administration, its readiness to contemplate pre-emptive strikes and its refusal to internationalise the occupation of Iraq. Europeans are deeply unhappy at the prospect of military commissions imposing the death penalty or unlimited detention for the Guantanamo Bay detainees, and at the way the US is trying to sabotage the International Criminal Court. These are some of the reasons for the demonstrations against President Bush. They must be peaceful protests, and as such I personally intend to join them. I have just returned from Washington as an ad hoc member of the US delegation. Our hosts were gracious and hospitable, we had useful discussions and we have a huge amount in common. However, as well as us understanding their position, the Americans need to understand our objections, and our Foreign Ministers and Prime Minister must convey these objections this week.

Political group: ELDR
Madam President, on a point of order. Following the Danish referendum will you now write to the Danish Prime Minister to congratulate the Danish people on having struck an historic blow for freedom, democracy and the nation state? The euro was meant to symbolise the strength and unity of Europe ... (The President cut off the speaker)

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, the problem we are discussing is a product of globalisation. The South Koreans have, in six years, trebled their shipbuilding capacity. They have not done it with their own money, but with loans. American loans were pressed on them, and the American banks did this in order that they might receive back the largest possible profits. Later the South Koreans left these loans, which had been pressed upon them, unpaid. The debts, however, were guaranteed, so that the International Monetary Fund sent South Korea money to pay off the American banks. In other words, the IMF has itself contributed to the current situation. The South Koreans were also advised to devalue their currency, as it was a way for them to free themselves from this economic crisis that we have caused them. They have devalued their currency by many tens of per cent and, as a consequence, their prices have become more competitive. They did not have to cut wages to reduce their price competitiveness; they only did what we advised them to do, which was to devalue their currency. South Korea is thus operating in a world that we have made for them. All those politicians who are now complaining about the problems South Korea has caused us are wrong if they claim that globalisation is irreversible and that we can do nothing about it. Globalisation is something which politicians can do nothing about if they do not want to. If pay in South Korea has gone down from six euros an hour to four euros an hour, it is not the South Koreans who are to blame. We are to blame, because we caused the economic crisis in South Korea. Now that crisis is simply spreading from South Korea to our shipyards. I hope that politicians will show more credibility in this matter and look into the basic causes of the problem, and not just those effects which have been spoken of a good deal here. We have wanted to ease the effects of the problem, but that will not happen if we do not do anything about its causes.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, one cannot be truly surprised at the slow progress of the opening of this IGC phase. One must simply trust that, as the prime ministers have had more time to reflect upon the outcome of the Convention and upon the poorer quality of their own proposals, they will be drawn closer to accepting the outcome of the Convention and selling it on to their publics. One issue that concerns me especially is the absence of a clear schedule for consideration of Part III. The IGC is surely a wonderful chance for us to refresh and modernise the policy chapters, some of which, like the CAP, are 50 years old. If Part III cannot be properly reformed, the IGC must, at least in Part IV, seek to soften the future revision procedures for Part III.

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, I want to thank the rapporteur for having fought like a lioness for access to environmental information. I might say that if I abstained in the vote by the conciliation delegation it was certainly not on account of the rapporteur’s or Parliament’s endeavours, but because the Council was clearly unwilling to actually update the directive on environmental information and propose ambitious targets regarding the Århus goals for access to environmental information. I believe that Parliament succeeded in preventing the Council’s worst aims to allow Member States a very loose framework for interpretation, for example, regarding the exceptions contained in the directive, on the grounds of which it is possible to refuse to provide the public with information. It is absolutely typical that the administrative authorities in the Member States should want to have the power to interpret such matters, so that they could then refuse to provide information. I believe, however, that in this case the worst was able to be prevented. On the other hand, regarding payments, we can be pleased that the principle of non-chargeable information has been established. I might nevertheless say that, where a guarantee of information made to the public requires some rummaging around in archives and data to be compiled the authorities will still be able to impose charges. I do not know if a member of the public should be obliged to pay for the government doing what it is expected to do anyway. Finally, I would like to cite a case. The Advocate General of the Court of Justice of the European Communities, Antonio Tizzano, recently stated that the public were not able to be given information by virtue, for example, of the Directive on gene packaging labelling. I would just like to say that this directive is now being tested as regards whether we have a sufficiently broad definition for environmental information. It mentions, for example, the food chain, and I hope that this really will guarantee that we will be able to provide our citizens with such information in the future.

Political group: Verts-ALE
The van den Berg report, like the Ferrer report, moreover, claims that European Union aid can do nothing less than reduce poverty in what are known as developing countries. However, as everyone knows, European Union aid, like aid from individual states, even the wealthiest ones, and aid from international institutions, is only a drop in the ocean of poverty under which these countries are submerged. The rapporteur himself admits this. Despite that, however, he is still promoting his conformist views on the virtues of education. In actual fact, this much-talked-about aid is only a tiny amount of what is plundered from the developing countries by the large capitalist groups of Europe and elsewhere. Moreover, the rapporteur mentions some of the destructive factors such as global economic inequalities and the burden of debt, but he shows no sign of wanting to put a stop to them. In other words, as far as the European Union is concerned, these countries are condemned to remaining under the yoke of the economic dictatorships of the large trusts. We abstained rather than voting against the motion, purely because we did not want to oppose the – albeit ludicrously inadequate – aid envisaged.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Driven by the and social democrat political family, the notion of services of general economic interest was enshrined in the Treaty of Amsterdam (Article 16) at the heart of the principles on which the European Union is based. As a step further, the European s resolutely committed themselves to defending and promoting services of general interest, as a fundamental aspect of our shared values and of our European social model. Upon this concept, democratic and social guarantees for European citizens are founded: equal access for all, information, consultation and participation for users and employees, quality and universality and financial viability while respecting employment and collective guarantees. Our battle lines have been drawn; our demands are clear. We are asking for the missions, organisation and financing arrangements for services of general interest to be guaranteed and laid down in a framework directive, a commitment made by Parliament as a whole in November 2001 when it adopted the Langen report. We want a democratic and pluralist evaluation of the social consequences of free competition to be conducted before there is any further liberalisation. This is an urgent issue judging by the flurry of texts submitted to the European Parliament in order to speed up liberalisation all over the place, in particular in transport, postal services, energy, the water market, waste treatment. (Explanation of vote abbreviated in accordance with Article 137(1) of the Rules of Procedure)

Political group: PSE
On the pretext of creating a single operating framework and providing better port services, the private sector is being paid to take over a sector which is still being run as a public utility. Existing ports are being given the opportunity to start providing more services in any sector they deem profitable, in contrast to the public administration and central service provider which takes care of necessary – if unprofitable – activities. Under the new system, terms and operating licences will be the preserve of a decision-making centre, which will be different from the past port services provider, because the same agency cannot act as both service provider and port manager. Corporations providing port services must comply with transparency requirements in their financial dealings with the public authorities. However, there is no evidence of any such obligation on the part of the private sector. The directive specifically mentions staff. Under Article 6.5, the service provider has the right to employ personnel of his own choice, but no reference whatsoever is made to qualifications or training. What we want are port services which operate transparently, which provide the same standard of service to everyone, as well as employment rights for workers, environmental protection and safe ports.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Madam President, on behalf of my group I would like to say that we should have recorded a protest vote. We have to vote on this, we have been put in an impossible position, but it should not be left as an ordinary vote of this Parliament. It is a vote under protest and of protest. (Applause)

Political group: PSE
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the President-in-Office used the image of a relay baton to be passed on with the macroeconomic dialogue. But it is not totally clear to us where he wants to run with this baton. We are still afraid he will just do a few splendid laps of honour round the stadium for the gallery, and that we will have to make do with unproductive or inadequate results. I would like to emphasise what has already been said here about Parliament’s non-participation. The lack of European Parliament participation in this dialogue is more than just a slight drawback. There is a direct link between democratic productivity, the productivity of the results achieved through a dialogue of this kind, and the type of participation. None of you involved in the dialogue, neither the Council nor the Commission, nor the European Central Bank, will be held directly to account if European solutions fail to emerge – unlike those elected to this Parliament, unlike those who sit in this House and are considered directly responsible by the electors who have voted for us! I warn you not to underestimate that point, because I believe that participation by Members will lead to better results in this case. There are pivotal shortcomings in the thought process. These relate to both the employment guidelines and to the key features of our economic policy. What is more, in some important areas thinking revolves around out-of-date ideas that public budgets can be consolidated just by limiting revenue and at the same time cutting expenditure. But that is not the sort of thinking that can eliminate remaining deficits. Last but not least, experience in America has shown that you cannot save your way out of remaining deficits, but rather that you have to eliminate them through growth. That is why it is necessary to support the economic development process in Europe, so as to tap all the available potential. That is why we are asking you very directly as to when agreements will be reached in which concrete benchmarks will be negotiated on the contribution of public investment to steady growth, which is also bound to have a positive impact on the labour market? When will you finally agree quantitative and qualitative employment targets to ensure that employment is raised to the level prevalent in Japan or in the USA? And when will you enter into a concrete agreement with us so that we can implement a consolidated strategy to exploit all the economic potential of Europe’s countries as well? There is no sign of that yet!

Political group: PSE
Madam President, I had better be careful what I say about Mrs Miguélez Ramos, in case she now becomes the Fisheries Minister in Madrid; so I will be nice to her from now on. We in the Committee on Fisheries recently had presentations from an eminent scientist, Dr Chris Reid from the Sir Alistair Hardy Foundation at Plymouth University. He was explaining to the Committee on Fisheries that global warming, which has caused a rise in the temperature of the North Sea by a significant amount over the last 20 years, has driven the plankton on which the cod feed northwards. It is not surprising, then, that we are witnessing a collapse in cod stocks in the North Sea which has led to the crisis that the Scottish fleet in particular is now confronting, and to the cod recovery plan that the Commission has implemented. Nevertheless, when you look at the table of proposed fishing opportunities under the modified Fourth Protocol for the Greenland Agreement, you see a reduction in fishing opportunities; a dramatic reduction in cod for a start, which perhaps gives some question to the science on which Dr Chris Reid was informing our committee. It at least indicates that in Greenland waters we do not have the vast abundance of fish that was once indicated. The good thing about this modification to the Fourth Protocol is that at least now we have no paper fish: we are paying for genuine fishing opportunities. We are relating the money that we pay from the European Union to the actual reality of the fishing opportunities that are there. If such fishing opportunities exist, the people who most require to benefit from those opportunities are the beleaguered fleet operating at present in the North Sea. For that reason regrettably I have to say, adding my voice and echoing what my colleagues have said this afternoon, that I agree that we cannot support Amendment No 5. Not only does that undermine the principle of relative stability, as Mrs Stihler and Mr Hudghton have eloquently explained, but it would also transfer those potential fishing opportunities away from the North Sea fleet and give them to fishing fleets outwith the North Sea, which would not be acceptable to the fishermen in the UK.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, I voted against the Haug report on the budget guidelines for the 2001 budgetary procedure for reasons which may seem futile to the other Members present, but which hold great importance for me, for I was elected to this Parliament to represent the Pensioners’ Party and I intend to do everything possible, and the impossible as well, to draw attention to the requests, needs and requirements of the elderly. There are approximately 120 million elderly people in Europe, most of whom receive a pension, although there are a few, less fortunate people who do not, but these guidelines make no provision whatsoever for a European Union policy for pensioners and the elderly. This is why I oppose this procedure, and I hope that I will be able to improve conditions for pensioners and the elderly during the next few years.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, Commissioner Lamy, the WTO round of talks at Doha were being called the Development Round already at that summit: its end result would be that the developing countries in particular would be able to benefit more from the advantages of globalisation. This must also be the objective at Cancun in September. In this respect it will be important to ensure that the developing countries receive the technical and financial assistance they need to help them develop their capacity in terms of administration, industry, commerce and exports. At the same time, however, it will also be necessary to emphasise the importance of good administration, good-neighbourliness, internal harmony and the fight against corruption as these countries strive to attain the standards of the developed countries. The alarming prevalence of AIDS, though not just that but many other epidemics too, means that, prior to the Cancun Summit, we should break down the barriers that have been preventing access to reasonably priced medicines everywhere. The problem is a tough one politically and industrio-politically, but it can be solved. A certain superpower, in terms of its resources and potential commercial might, Russia, is still outside the WTO. The Cancun agenda does not and cannot include discussion of Russia’s internal legislation or its properly organised administration, or how its WTO membership negotiations could be sped up. It is nevertheless very much in the interests of the EU in particular that Russia should join the WTO as quickly as possible. It is by no means just Russia that is suffering from the situation as it is now: the present state of affairs is essentially weakening reciprocal economic relations between the EU and Russia with regard to investment and trade between them. As with the less developed countries – or should I say as with the other less developed countries? – Russia too should be given support to develop its administration, customs systems, taxation and payments, and other such matters, so that they reach the reliable level that WTO membership requires. The Commission will have a tough job regarding this in the future. Commissioner Lamy is used to hard and productive work, but this particular field of activity will also bring economic benefits for the EU.

Political group: PPE-DE