GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Mr President, with regard to the Commission’s communication on the information society, I feel that it is particularly important to underscore the emphasis placed on the need to provide all European citizens with access to new technologies. This is more than an economic challenge: it is a process of profound cultural change which must filter down to every family, every school, every company and every public authority. In order to achieve this objective, although, on the one hand, we do need to promote the spread of new technologies, on the other, it is essential to implement the necessary measures and reinforce the confidence of consumers in the major opportunities presented by e-commerce. There is a genuine need for this, given the suspicion with which our fellow citizens approach these new tools. A high level of protection is essential for the effective spread of the use of new technologies to the daily lives of millions of people, and clear rules will have to be defined if European citizens are to be able to take full advantage of the benefits. In this regard, I had submitted a series of amendments for the attention of the Committee on Industry intended precisely to stress the importance of consumer protection in the project for disseminating new technologies put forward by the Prodi Commission. It was with regret that I learned that only some of these amendments had been included in Mrs Read’s report. I am, however, in agreement with the main points of the report, and I do hope that this omission was due to the unfortunate circumstances which meant that my Committee, which deals with consumer protection, did not have time to produce an official opinion. I trust that during work on the action plan, following the Lisbon Summit, there will be more effective cooperation between the two Committees.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, during the first sitting in July, when you were President-in-Office of the Council, I asked you a very similar question and you told me that the Council and the Danish Presidency would address the matter as quickly as possible. Two or three days later, on 8 July, I asked this question, hoping specifically that during the summer something would have been done. The problem we have in the European Union, Mr President, and this is neither your fault nor that of the Danish Government, is that our system does not work. Between the date on which I asked the first question, the first week of July, and today, thousands of illegal immigrants have entered the Canary Islands, both by sea and by air, and the situation there is unsustainable, and we do not have any reception centres. These islands have a smaller area than the islands of Denmark, and at the moment we do not have any means of solving the problem. Mr President, I would say – and I repeat – that, through no fault of your own or of the Danish Presidency, the Council of the European Union is not following up the proposals that Mr Vitorino has been making for some time now, so that the European Union can in fact establish control. We should at least know who is arriving and why, and what we can do for them.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, I would like to start by expressing my full solidarity and the solidarity of my group with the people of Algeria, which has once again been struck by a huge disaster. We who support the Algerian people, particularly in their fight for independence, are shocked by the tragic consequences of the floods in that country. Material and, above all, human loss are jeopardising the country’s development and preserving its excessive structural and political shortcomings. This disaster reveals once again the incompetence of the Algerian government: the way it builds houses and roads in flood plains and decides to block drains allegedly for safety reasons is proof of the utter irresponsibility of its leaders, and this is on top of the corruption and misuse of funds. The government has failed in its primary mission of serving the general interests of the people. It has done nothing to meet the needs of the people or ensure their safety. Therefore, we must call upon the Algerian authorities to make good their past mistakes. This situation must on no account be allowed to occur again either in Algeria or elsewhere. We must no longer allow citizens’ lives to be endangered by irresponsible, self-interested or reprehensible behaviour.

Political group: Verts-ALE
We see it as positive that an attempt is being made to reverse the trend towards water degradation, which is most alarming and which governments all too often tend to sweep under the carpet. We all know that water is a commodity without which mankind cannot live and that it is imperative that its quality should be preserved. But it is also essential to bear in mind that the various elements of water policy cannot be separated, and that action on this aspect will affect all the others. The “physico-chemical and ecological quality of water” was highlighted during the debate and in the proposals, and the adverse effects of other aspects was, at best, touched upon marginally. It is essential to be aware of the widely varying situations in different Member States, such as specific climatic conditions, water regimes and fluctuations in them over the year, the social, economic and ecological effects of applying standards, and also of the failure to do so. It was because of our concern about these issues that we disagreed with some of the proposals put forward by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, and in particular those relating to an excessively restrictive timetable and to the scant attention paid to social and agricultural aspects, which are very important for a country like Portugal, which suffers from water shortage problems and also inadequate socio-economic development. But we also believe that, in many cases, the proposals put forward by the Commission and the Council represent too much of a step backwards, which is why we would like to see a vote balanced between the various requirements in the proposals presented to us.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, I am pleased to hear that Parliament will be receiving documents before we are supposed to be drawing up our reports – that is something positive. The question I want clarified is: where does sustainable development fit into this? In his introduction Commissioner Solbes talked about sustainable growth, which is not the same as sustainable development – some growth can destroy the environment and jobs and is not particularly sustainable. So where is the sustainability element going to come from? How is this going to be determined through a qualitative analysis of growth, and how is this going to fit into this coordination which we are hoping to see in future? At the moment this is a missing element and yet it is supposed to be a key element of the spring summits as decided at Göteborg?

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would also like to highlight an initial point that I think is fundamental: the Commission declaration is a poor one. The responsibility of the Commission today is effectively to take on the role of the public authority within the powers that it has inherited from the High Authority of the European Coal and Steel Community. It should also be pointed out that the Commission should not be a spectator, but play an active public role in managing steel at European Union level. The resolution put forward contains some themes that we see as essential. I hope that the Commission is able to answer four quite specific questions on these four themes. First of all, being aware that European firmness is necessary in order for steel production to be fairly distributed at global level, is the Commission going to ensure that the Polish Government cannot intervene financially in the industrial processes to support any of the Arcelor’s group’s plans in Poland? Secondly, does the Commission consider that it is still entirely capable of ensuring that the European Union can choose and maintain a steel industry, or is it simply waiting for the industry to disappear? In other words, is the Commission aware that it still has a responsibility under Article 3 of the ECSC Treaty, or has it forgotten that article? Thirdly, regarding regional restructuring and social support, is the Commission prepared, from now on, to use the resources of all of the European instruments as part of a programme negotiated with the responsible authority, that is, the Walloon regional authorities in Belgium, to ensure that any aid is focused on social support and restructuring, while ensuring that state aid is not paid to other regions? The fourth question is: what measures does the Commission intend to take in order to ensure that existing European social law is respected before any decision is made by any group? In particular this involves respecting a number of collective agreements. Along the same lines, is the Commission prepared, as far as company law is concerned, to invoke Article 5 of the ECSC Treaty, according to which the Commission has the task of ensuring that social activity continues as long as general production at European level is not threatened? Mr President, today Europe must, through the Commission, show the rest of the world that it is firm on commercial matters and make the industrial choice to be socially pro-active and restructure industry in a useful way. Finally, the Commission needs to play its role as a public power, to make European employment law and company law a reality. I am looking forward to hearing the Commission’s response, and I hope that the speech that will follow those of MEPs will not be of a general nature like the Commissioner’s first speech.

Political group: ELDR
Madam President, my group is prepared to support the postponement of this debate on human rights provided that it takes place during the July part-session and is not postponed indefinitely. This is because we believe that the debate on this report is very important, but we also believe that there are other events, such as the case of Ireland, which deserve our attention on the eve of the Gothenburg Summit. I will add one piece of information: if I am not mistaken, the Belgian Prime Minister, Mr Verhofstadt, will appear before this Parliament during the next part-session. Mr Verhosfstadt, as a senator in the Kingdom of Belgium, was the rapporteur for the committee which studied Belgium’s responsibilities in the case of Rwanda. An historic judgment is currently being drafted in Brussels which will define the universal dimension of genocide, which I believe does honour to Belgium and the European Union. I believe that it is very important that we listen to the Belgian Prime Minister on such a crucial issue.

Political group: PSE
Madam President, in a moment, we will be listening to a communication from the Commission on the fuel crisis, and I am pleased that the Commissioner is able to attend. We all know that she will not be staying for very long as she is leaving for Luxembourg later on this evening to visit the Transport Council. This should not prevent us, however, from entering into an extensive and searching debate on this issue and going over the short hour that was originally scheduled. Madam President, I express the view of many MEPs when I say that I regret that we have to deal with this issue in such a short space of time. The issue concerned has thrown the whole of Europe into commotion and may well do so for the foreseeable future. The time allocated is really far too short and, on behalf of many MEPs, I felt I had to express my dissatisfaction in public.

Political group: PPE-DE
Obviously, the political leaders of Europe have a right and a duty to react against Mr Haider and his party. The political leaders of Europe are entitled to express their view of political developments in another Member State, just as a prime minister can express his opinion about racist politicians in a local authority. Finland’s experience, however, is that integration, rather than isolation, is the better way of combating antidemocratic forces. I therefore voted against paragraph 2 of the resolution, which presupposes that all parties have respect for human rights. The EU Presidency’s “common reaction” against the formation of the government in Austria is legally unjustified. The treaties do not authorise this reaction by the 14 Member States. Nor should we isolate the forces in Austria which wish to work for human rights. Despite these objections of mine to the Council’s action and despite my view that it is better to work for integration than to employ isolating tactics, it was important to show clearly where the European Parliament stands on questions of racism, which is why I voted in favour of the resolution at the final vote.

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, with your permission, I should like to draw your attention to an inconsistency between the Minutes and the lists of roll-call votes. Yesterday, we voted on the resolution on the Feira Summit and many colleagues will recall that – to laughter from many in this House – the Austrian Members of Haider’s party voted in favour of two amendments which were very critical of Austria and then, some time later, took the floor and said that they had made a mistake and wanted their votes to be registered as votes against. This correction – that is, that they voted against – is accurately reflected in the Minutes but, obviously in part thanks to their party headquarters’ intervening, the names of these Members do not appear anywhere in the record of the roll-call vote taken on Amendment No 4. I would therefore request that the lists of roll-call votes be corrected so that they correspond to the events which we all witnessed here. The Minutes are correct in this respect. It would also be desirable to clarify how many corrections to the corrections we Members are entitled to submit.

Political group: PSE
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, you can obviously count on this Parliament being predisposed in your favour. That of course has to do with your high ambitions, which correspond with our own and also with the great disappointments that we as parliamentarians were forced to endure at Nice and during various presidencies. But, as you know, the higher you climb, the further you have to fall. It will count more heavily against you in this Parliament if you fail, than against those of whom less was expected. There is already a first: regional ministers will also operate during your Presidency of the Council. And I am speaking here as chair of the to tell you that the regions are counting on you to ensure that, during this Presidency, their request to be directly involved in the discussions on the future of Europe will be granted. Our wish is that the role of the European constitutional regions should be strengthened in the Union. At the same time, we want a federal Europe that is better equipped for its core tasks, such as foreign and security policy. Is it not appalling that, so close to enlargement of the Union to include five hundred million people and over twenty Member States, we do not yet even have a coherent European migration and asylum policy although, every day, traffickers in human beings dump desperate people on our coasts and allow them to drown? A safe and just area, able to remove people’s fear of enlargement, is one of your priorities. The battle against illegal trading in arms, drugs and human beings must be vigorously engaged in, as must the battle against fraud. Of course, I have a number of other wishes, but I shall be able to make them known to you on other occasions. I wish you every success.

Political group: Verts-ALE
I agree with those who have pointed out that creating pilot programmes for ‘tripartite contracts and agreements between the Community, the States and regional and local authorities’ can only be interpreted properly if we take account of the intentions underpinning this action. As a matter of fact, because the aim that is proposed – by means of ‘formally coordinated actions’ being able to ‘improve the implementation of policies’, in other words, to establish Community standards that can only be applied with particular arrangements, taking account of very different and specific existing realities – already features in the Treaties, specifically by implementing the principle of subsidiarity and by means of a much more straightforward and appropriate process, which is to set targets to be achieved, leaving it up to the Member States how to do this by means of a directive. Consequently, what underlies this initiative is not the crucial need to combat ultra-bureaucratic or highly centralised procedures or for a real increase in the power of local authorities to manage their own domain, but simply to raise local authorities to the level of direct partners of the European institutions in implementing their guidelines, in an attempt to take over from States as the national interlocutor. Hence the support and the hearty congratulations of Parliament’s ultra-federalist Committee on Constitutional Affairs.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, as you know, my position was quite the opposite and I am still convinced that it is a mistake not to refer the matter to the Court of Justice. I simply wanted to say this in plenary as well, because if we accept that the Council can pass an act under the co-decision procedure, taking away the power of co-decision from Parliament, we are playing into the Council’s hands. Unfortunately, I do not think that the Council will look upon this in a positive light, but rather as something that it can do again. I just wanted to say, therefore, that I think it is a mistake not to refer the matter to the Court of Justice.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, in my contribution, I should like to focus on Romania, and I have three reasons for doing so. The first is that the present discussion on Romania is, in my view, the best possible barometer of the current enlargement round. Indeed, what is evident from this discussion is that the main problems in the new Member States are not related to the fisheries chapter or the transport chapter, important and interesting though these may be. The most persistent problems in the new Member States have to do with the functioning of the constitutional state, the independence of the judiciary and freedom of expression of opinion. This brings me to my second reason, provided that other Members allow me to carry on, Mr President, for noise levels are rather high at the moment. The discussion on Romania is also of major importance for future enlargement rounds including Turkey and the Balkans, and for the reason that we cannot very well insist in Ankara and Zagreb on an improvement of human rights or the rights of minorities if, at the same time, we allow the situation in Bucharest to remain at a standstill and, in fact, to change for the worse in a number of respects. So to my third point, which is that the situation in Romania itself remains problematic. To this day, the reform of the constitutional state is in its infancy. To this day, it is impossible for critical journalists to do their jobs. To this day, corruption is an enormous problem right up to the highest political level. In her report, Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne is right to take a critical view of this. To the Group of the , I would say that advocates of enlargement, even more than its opponents, have a duty to be critical, and they must also remain so. It is encouraging to see, Mr President, that precisely this critical stance is bearing fruit. Over the past few days, the Romanian Government has announced new reforms and accelerated the old ones. The Justice Minister has had to step down because he is held responsible for the stagnation. I would urge the Romanian Government to carry on with the reforms, for if it does not, it may as well forget about joining in 2007. My appeal to NGOs and journalists is to carry on with their critical work and keep us informed. Mr President, the European Union is good at influencing countries by dangling a carrot in front of them, but sometimes an educational rap on the knuckles does wonders too.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, I thank Mr Trillo and the Commissioners for their valuable contributions, which have been very illuminating. I believe that, when building Europe as a hopeful and exciting project, it is essential to recognise the need for a security and defence dimension. However, there are three aspects which I do not agree with and which may be crucial: Firstly, I believe we should move towards a concept of defence based on shared security: for example, it is true that we have to respond to terrorism, but a military response is not sufficient unless it is based on law – in this case, international law – and on the elimination of the causes of barbaric acts such as the events of 11 September. It is therefore essential that the concept of shared security is a fundamental element in this proposal. Secondly, I believe it is a mistake to focus our attention on treating NATO as an umbrella to protect us, and also on the special cooperation with the United States. I believe that that approach hinders and slows down our ability to develop the autonomous, independent and effective security and defence policy that Europe needs. There is a third aspect: the role to be played, now and in the future, by the European Union in terms of defence and security, which should be the promotion of peace, the promotion of different relations in the world, and therefore the consideration of the United Nations and international law as the only references for the actions of the European Union. In fact, this aspect has either been ignored or not taken sufficiently into account by the President-in-Office of the Council and I believe that it should be taken up, since I believe it would be a mistake for us not to base our actions on international law and legality. This is precisely one of the most necessary aspects at the current time in order to introduce sanity, rationality and a notion of solidarity into the situation in the Middle East. In this respect, in view of the instruments we would need, the concept of the OSCE should be recovered in order to guarantee security in Europe and we should focus all our attention on what Commissioner Patten and other speakers have mentioned: the need to remove the current budgetary ceiling, because it is impossible to make sufficient progress in relation to the defence industry and coordination and cooperation with the miserly budgets laid down by the Union. Finally, I would like to mention the importance of parliamentary democratic control, both by the European Parliament and by the various national parliaments.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, you have already answered one part of my question, but I wanted first to say that I do not know whether I signed myself in yesterday, although I was here all day and actually voted. So I would like to ask that that be added, in view of the Minutes arriving so late anyway. The second point I wanted to raise is whether it might be possible in future for the Minutes to be distributed in the morning? This would mean that deferring the approval to the afternoon would have the advantage that we could peruse the Minutes at our leisure in the morning. I really do not see why their distribution has to wait until the afternoon.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, I am pleased to hear that the Commissioner is taking action in this area and I offer her my congratulations. On the issue of doping, I have a very specific question: time and again, when doping cases occur, it is pointed out that the athletes were not clear about the content of the products. A fairly simple measure which could be adopted – although it is admittedly not absolutely watertight in its effect – is to identify doping products on the label, perhaps by including a red dot or a red line on the packaging, in order to draw specific attention to the content and the risks associated with doping. Could the Commissioner take steps in this direction?

Political group: PPE-DE