GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, no sensible person would dare to reject the principle of equality between men and women, or in other words between human beings. In recent days, in my region, Galicia, this equality is being clearly demonstrated, through solidarity and also through pain. Yesterday, television stations broadcast the human and heart-breaking image of the minute’s silence expressing condemnation and rejection of the latest terrorist attack by people, men and women, who were working to recover Galicia’s environment, the marine environment, in the fight to deal with the consequences of the Prestige disaster. Yesterday as well, the media reflected the figures relating to domestic violence inflicted on women by their husbands, boyfriends or ex-partners. In some sections of the media it was also pointed out that the great majority of victims did not recognise their situation. This is what seems to me to be the most serious violation of sex equality. On the other hand, it is of some comfort that the result of the survey suggests an improvement in the situation in comparison with the survey of 1999, but it is worrying that this situation is continuing 15 years after a constitutional text, in its marvellous Article 14, declared that all Spaniards, in this case, are equal before the law, and that there could be no discrimination on the grounds of race, sex etc. Our Charter of Fundamental Rights, in Article 20, declares that all persons – it does not say men and women, which is not necessary – are equal before the law. And Article 21 states that all discrimination is prohibited and, in particular, discrimination on the grounds of sex, race etc. Last Tuesday, the plenum of the Spanish Congress of Deputies approved the idea that all legislative provisions produced by the government should include a report analysing their impact on gender equality. I believe that practical conclusions should be drawn from Mrs Kratsa-Tsagaropoulou’s report, which is excellent, given the balance she has achieved on an issue on which it is very easy to fall into demagoguery and not do enough, and we must move on from theory to reality and insist on the objective of equality through the horizontalisation of policies promoting equality, so that principles may become reality and so that reality may reflect the principles which the great majority of us advocate and which we want to see alive and enshrined in the Europe we are building.

Political group: PPE-DE
The report adopted in committee struck a very careful balance between those who wish to move faster to build on the common transport charging framework with concrete measures and those who feel that public opinion is not ready for such a radical rethinking of the way society pays for the use of its transport infrastructure. The rapporteur is pleased with the substantial agreement on the fundamental principles contained in the report, namely that the Community is competent to establish a common methodology for calculating transport costs; that external costs should be included in such evaluations; that revenue should be directed to reducing environmental damage and encouraging modal shift to less polluting transport alternatives; that implementation should be governed by subsidiarity; that the users and polluters pay in proportion to use; and that exemptions should be made for the less mobile members of society and those living in rural areas. For these reasons, whilst I am sympathetic to many of the amendments tabled by the Group of the for concrete measures, I cannot support them here, since they would jeopardise the consensus on the above principles and can be examined later in the course of the implementation of a charging framework.

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, I must thank my colleague Mr Laschet for this report, which is far-reaching and envisages great opportunities, but we must also devise a way to move from the current situation towards realising these opportunities. First of all, I must say that I had a great experience of collaboration with the United Nations when I was working with its Vice-Secretary General on a report that I was completing, within the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly, on protecting children’s rights. I feel that the proposal made by Mr Laschet represents the first phase of a reform that the UN must, however, face up to. Having left behind the rationale of Yalta and power blocs, we must make the case for increasing multilateralism. We must make new nations responsible at world level, without removing time-honoured instruments through which world peace has been promoted; and the right of veto is one such time-honoured instrument. The Security Council must, in any case, be enlarged, and we then need to consider new permanent members, without the right of veto. These could include the European Union, Australia, Argentina, Brazil, Egypt, Germany, Japan, India, Italy and South Africa. Furthermore, we also need to expand the number of members elected to the Security Council and then reform the Agencies to make them more operational on the ground. We need to speed up the promotion of human rights and the affirmation of the principles of democracy. We need to assume that the United Nations intends to protect people, since it invokes the concept of the nation and not that of the state, and the concept of the nation presupposes the protection of the person. This process of protecting people needs to start as a matter of urgency because terrorism is hot on our heels: today it is in the guise of Al-Qaeda and Bin Laden, tomorrow it could have a different name. Of course, a reformed NATO could be the international police force that the UN might need. Division and exclusion certainly give rise to war; union and the philosophical concept of union instead promote important goals of peace.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, because of a financial interest I shall not participate in the vote. Regarding Amendments Nos 10 and 16

Political group: PPE-DE
Chairman and draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Budgets. – Mr President, Mr Méndez de Vigo telephoned me last week to inform me of Ecofin’s proposals, and Mr Hänsch came to our committee on Monday of this week. On both occasions, I was absolutely dumbfounded as to what they told us. I cannot believe that the Council is taking on board the proposals from Ecofin in the budgetary area. As a Brit, I can say that, on the issue of own resources, I understand why it is doing this. Whether it is right is a different issue. On the other two issues of the financial perspectives and the budgetary procedure, it really is a step too far. To take such action would neuter this Parliament. There would be no need for a Budgets Committee if this were agreed at the IGC. Quite frankly, we would be castrated with a pair of rusty scissors. We do not need this type of so-called 'dominance' from the Council. Parliament has given a lot in trying to get an agreement at the Convention – and the Council also claims that it has done the same. But the one thing we have given is the acceptance of the financial perspectives enshrined in the Treaty. Right now, if we break the Interinstitutional Agreement, we go back to the Treaty, which gives Parliament a lot more power and a lot more authority. We have sacrificed this in order to get an agreement, which is a more cooperative approach and would mean that we work together in cooperation. However, what we have here is not cooperation but coercion from the Council. This cannot be allowed to go ahead and every effort must be made to ensure that it is prevented. (Applause)

Political group: PSE
Madam President, since the borders between the Member States of the European Union were opened, an increasing number of firms have been taking advantage of the opportunities offered by this common market. At that time we had to note on the one hand that freight transport had been made considerably easier, but that on the other there were still major barriers and costs associated with making the corresponding payments. The first study on this subject, which was carried out at the instigation of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, showed at the time that cross-border transfers of over DEM 1 000 cost 25% on average, and as much as 75% in individual cases. You have to bear in mind that small and medium-sized businesses are of course the ones primarily affected by this. When the markets between the Member States of the European Union were opened up, our ambition as Members of the European Parliament was never to create access for large companies, which they had of course had for a long time already; it was always to open up this large European market to small and medium-sized businesses. That is why I am extremely grateful to our rapporteur, Mrs Peijs, for the persistency with which she has pursued this objective for many years, that is to bring down the costs of making transfers between the Member States of the European Union. I have to stress that there have already been some improvements here, that average transfer costs are much lower than they were when the borders were opened between the Member States, but I should like to emphasise just as clearly that they are still far too high and that further action is needed here. The banks repeatedly tell us – and with some justification – that the necessary facilities to effect transfers of this kind, the giro systems which exist in the individual domestic markets, are still not fully operational at European level. A major effort is needed here. This remark is not directed solely at the European Central Bank, but also at the various banking associations which we have in the European Union. What we wish to see is not just one single transfer system – which would once again be a monopoly – but competition between different transfer systems set up by different banks and groups of banks, competition which will at long last work in favour of the public and in favour of small and medium-sized businesses. (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE
We voted in favour of this report, which concerns the protection of workers from the risks related to exposure to carcinogens or mutagens and which makes it compulsory for bosses to provide protection and to comply with restrictions on the use of such substances. Yet the best way of providing protection would be not to use products which give rise to such serious risks to workers’ health, and to replace them with less harmful products as soon as techniques are perfected and replacement products are discovered.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, Mr Khanbhai has produced a balanced report, whose proposals we gladly lend our support to. The report draws specific attention to the triangle of poverty, health and education, no part of which can be ignored without action in the other two areas coming to nothing. Poverty has sometimes been compared to war: it takes prisoners and it kills. The only difference is that death from poverty is slow and the victim him/herself is branded as the culprit. I therefore also want to remind our Member States of the 0.7% target, to give some credibility to our calls for altruism in the pharmaceutical industry. I would particularly support the establishment of a global infectious disease fund and the introduction of compulsory licences to improve the availability of medicines. Both will take great initiative on the part of the EU and their successful implementation will require the goodwill of key global movers and shakers as well as institutions. In any action taken, however, it has to be borne in mind that, without viable basic health care, no other developments are possible. Good basic health in itself also prevents more dangerous infections, and it makes it easier to identify infections early on and stop them if basic health care has been provided for. We must not forget the importance of people’s attitudes: if there is not even any functional basic health care in place, apathy grows and then people cannot in all fairness be asked to take seriously infection risks that might develop into fatal illnesses in the years to come. No matter how fearful the prospects of communicable disease are, making us feel a spontaneous need to take specific action as a consequence, it should never be done at the expense of basic health care. It can, therefore, be said with some justification that EU aid with regard to basic health care has been totally inadequate for a long time now. For that reason, doubling the EU’s financial aid resources for basic health care can be considered to be the most essential matter from the point of view of all the other objectives. We should bear in mind the Copenhagen Social Summit pledge to attain universal and equitable access to primary health care.

Political group: PPE-DE
I wonder when the treatment and transport of animals will be seen as part of the public health and food safety chain. We have already seen how animal nutrition has significance for people’s health, but the ways in which we treat animals and the methods and systems we use to feed and transport them in fact affect public health as directly as does poor animal feed. If these matters are not handled in the right way, there is a significant increase in the risk of diseases. These are mainly cured with antibiotics, but large quantities of tranquillisers are also used. One consequence of antibiotics being misused as a result of poor animal husbandry is that what, during the last 60 years, have been simple infections are now – and, above all, will be in the future – significantly more serious when antibiotics are no longer available to us.

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, like many in the House I very much welcomed what Mr Prodi said to us this morning, both about the architecture of the Union and its institutions and about the Charter of Rights. I am one of those who believe that adopting the Charter, even in a declaratory mode, will be a welcome step forward because it will certainly lead in due course to a charter that is fully legally binding. I should like to draw the attention of the House and the Commission to the question which will arise this Friday when we are discussing the rights of the lettori, the foreign language lecturers in Italian universities. Here we have a situation where rights possessed by citizens of the Union have been denied for twelve years and more. It is no good agreeing a Charter of Rights at the highest level if individual citizens who are wronged by a state have no effective remedy. We insist, therefore, that as well as the commitment to the Charter we have heard from the Commission today, it also commits itself to protecting the rights of individual citizens.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, I should like to ask a bit more about this forum. How big is it? How often will it meet? Where will it meet? How much will it cost? Who is going to pay for it? Can you fill out the detail?

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Mr President of the Commission, I know that you are in a hurry and must go, but I would like to thank you very much for keeping the promise you made to Members of this House, to bring nothing to Laeken on which a decision had already been made, and for being so determined that there should be an interinstitutional working party. Such cooperation with Parliament is quite exemplary, and I wish to thank you most warmly for it. I would, though, also like to extend my warm thanks to the rapporteurs, Mr Leinen, Mr Méndez de Vigo and Mrs Kaufmann for having focussed their excellent reports so well on the vital importance to us of making Europe's decision-making structures more democratic and more efficient and for pointing out that there must be no contradiction in this, much as that might have appeared to be the case here and there, with elements of democracy having to be sacrificed for efficiency's sake. Both as regards the Convention and legislation, what matters to us is that we, as the people's directly elected Members of Parliament, are convinced, not that we can do everything, which would be quite false, but that we should have control of the decision-making process. Mr President of the Commission, some small differences may well still be there. We want this 'call back position' only in the event of a delegated decision-making structure being incapable or coming to the wrong decisions – wrong, that is, in the sense of being contrary to what the legislature intended. It would be better, and is always good, for others to reach decisions along the lines that we have indicated in our fundamental decisions and political approach. I hope, firstly, that the Council is now willing to set up this interinstitutional working party soon, and, secondly, that we will be able, taking the Mandelkern and Kaufmann reports and the Commission's Final Conclusions as our basis, to conclude the Agreement as early as June next year, or, at least, that the Council will be able, next June, to agree that the three institutions have found a way to take Europe into a future which will be more highly developed and marked both by democracy and efficiency.

Political group: PSE
It seems absurd to discuss the use of biofuels without discussing the control of all energy resources, from oil to white energy, and nuclear energy as well. Although this is an area in which conscious planning on a global scale should prevail, it is energy production and transport and the management of energy resources that are most important, especially since the choice between the various energy sources can have major consequences for the planet’s future. Yet, this is an area which is dominated by some of the most powerful corporations in the world, whose sole concern is to maximise their profits, whatever the implications may be for the human race. These corporations have the resources to impose their decisions on the entire world and to use Member States and their tax policy to support the most profitable form of energy. The “European Union’s energy dependence”, condemned by the report, does not, in actual fact, support producing countries – it supports these corporations. In order to have a genuine discussion on the choice between the various forms of energy, we should subject these corporations to checks on their strategy and even their approach to their research. (Explanation of vote abbreviated in accordance with Rule 137(1) of the Rules of Procedure)

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, it is clear that there are still major differences of opinion in this Parliament. Certainly, when I hear the opinions of the traditional farmers' front, it is clear that this Parliament still has much work to do. From a Socialist point of view, world trade is about fair play for all. It is essential that we achieve breakthrough in the negotiations on the agricultural portfolio. We would like to secure two things in this regard. Firstly we would like to see an end to the dumping of products from Europe and the USA on the markets of developing countries. We would also like to see our markets opened up more towards developing countries, in which populations are sometimes more than 80% dependent for their incomes on agricultural activity and the abolition of quotas and tariff restrictions on developing countries exporting to us. Secondly we would like to see production subsidies in the European agricultural policy converted into public grants for nature conservation and new economic activities in the countryside (recreation, ICT, animal welfare). In other words, less, but spread out more extensively; less support for large-scale farmers; more support for quality and a reasonable existence for farmers. The latter is essential, as liberalisation is one thing, but we do not want the market to do everything. What we need is public supervision and regulation. We are talking about a social model for Europe. We are well aware that in doing so we will have to prevent this support from public grants from being indirectly used as capped subsidies, thus once more resulting in protectionism and products being sold on the world market too cheaply. In our opinion it is clear that the proposals now being put forward are a good starting point. At the same time we would like to ask Commissioners Lamy and Fischler to make more than 50% of agricultural products from developing countries tax-free. We would like to see change phased in before 2011. What we would like to see is over 30% off the tariffs, and in 30% less time. We wholeheartedly endorse the concept of the Food Box. We also realise, however, that the ACS countries must do their homework better and come up with proposals more quickly. Then there is the USA, of course. It is clear that the USA, with its Farm Bill, is currently going completely against the spirit and the facts of Doha. This places us in an enormous dilemma. We are of the opinion that Europe and the developing countries must together exert pressure on the USA to abandon this position, because we are convinced that the current policy is bad for us, for our environment, and for the welfare of our animals, as well as for the developing countries. As the Group of the has already done in the last legislative term, let us also demonstrate the courage to change course despite all the ifs and buts.

Political group: PSE
Madam President, I would like to make a similar announcement to this House. I think that many in this Chamber are affected, as authors. But as far as Amendment No 33 is concerned, I am particularly biased. I will definitely not be voting on Amendment No 33.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, in order to construct a Europe which respects the environment, it is a political and legislative priority to ensure that the business community is fully involved in the task of environmental protection. In this context, the directives we are discussing today are essential legislative instruments which contribute to preserving our environment by persuading businesses in the sector to internalise the cost of certain environmental impacts and to adopt a committed position without abandoning their market objectives. Mr Florenz’s work is commendable and I must congratulate him on it, since he has managed to create some proposals for directives which find a balance between the interests of consumers, the environment and businesses in the sector, interests which are very difficult to combine. I would like to mention the Member States’ obligation to achieve a recovery rate of six kilos per inhabitant, since I believe we should take account of the existing differences between the Member States. It is clear that Germany, for example, does not produce the same amount of residue as other countries, such as Greece, Portugal or Spain. Furthermore, the lifespan of each piece of equipment is significantly different between Member States, which exacerbates that problem. I would like to repeat that it is appropriate to apply an implementation co-efficient to the recovery obligation in order thereby to balance and harmonise the obligation, depending on the Member State in question. I would also like to highlight the importance of Article 7, which deals with financial responsibility. For the sake of greater fairness, individual financial responsibility seems logical, but I very much agree with the solution contained in the report of leaning towards individual responsibility without closing the door to the application of collective responsibility in certain cases. With regard to the exceptions for lead solder, I believe that it should be maintained, because I believe that the use of substitutes could create a greater environmental problem or jeopardise consumer safety.

Political group: PPE-DE