GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, the Italian Presidency is being greeted with mixed feelings. You spoke about Italy's proud contribution to peace and international law, and we would ask you whether your presidency will feature as a milestone in this respect. How, for example, would you deal with the pressure which the United States is currently putting on Serbia not to sign the Treaty on the International Criminal Court, while at the same time Europe wants to offer the Balkan countries the prospect of accession to the EU? The refugees who wash up on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea are an indictment of the inhumanity of our system. It will never work without legal immigration options. You spoke, above all, about monitoring procedures and about sending people back, but sustainable development and peace in the countries from which people come must become a priority in the immediate future. This development requires not only trade measures, but also respect for the environment and development opportunities for those countries. They are now being robbed of everything and people are given weapons instead. Peace in the regions in Europe is also important. There are regions in every accession country that are waiting for opportunities and for sustainable development, because they are faced with impoverishment and depopulation. This is also the case in some of our own regions. We would ask for greater visibility of the regions in the Constitution. Constitutional regions, in particular, wish to receive respect instead of supercilious treatment from the Member States that have the final say in every instance. This only adds to the frustration in the constitutional regions. I hope that your presidency will demonstrate an understanding of this.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Madam President, firstly I would like to thank the rapporteurs for their excellent reports. Enlargement is a huge political and historical event but it is also the biggest objective regarding development cooperation the Member States have ever committed themselves to. For that reason its success requires mutual cooperation and trust. The Commission’s proposals on financing enlargement are realistic and even rather shrewd. The new Member States need support; the principle whereby they immediately become net beneficiaries is the correct one, as it takes into consideration their solvency rating. Likewise, there is no intention to reduce the income of farmers in the new Member States but put it on a growth track. It is just as clear, however, that the financial burden of the present Member States cannot be suddenly increased. For that reason, phased-in implementation is the right way to proceed. I wish to draw attention to one matter. The new Member States are attractive agricultural countries in terms of their natural conditions. The price of land is low in these countries. Rates of pay are 10 – 20% of the EU average, and the EU is furthermore intending to support up to 80% of investments in association with the Member State in question. For that reason my question relates to family farming. Does the EU intend to support industrial agriculture in the same way as family farming or is the intention to implement aid and modulations in one form or another that decrease with size?

Political group: ELDR
Commission President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, I appreciate the merits of benchmarking in our economic deliberations, yet I would urge Mrs Peijs, Mrs Carlsson and all those that continually cite the American model as an example to ask the people of California what they think of the virtues of liberalisation and the disruption of a public service as vital as the electricity supply in a modern twenty-first century economy. I consider the reports before us today to be good ones insofar as they seek to consolidate growth in Europe. They are based on the idea that such growth must be supported by structural reform. We share this point of view, on condition that such structural reform is appropriate to one objective which is also our chief objective, as our committee chair, Mrs Randzio-Plath, stated: social reform must also lead to greater social integration. No economic policy without this objective is possible. We hope that Stockholm, too, will provide an opportunity to reaffirm that the strategy of full employment is now perhaps one that is feasible in Europe. From this point of view, we find that Mr Gasòliba i Böhm’s report occasionally expresses a rather liberal approach. Liberalisation is not tolerable unless it is progressive, unless it goes hand in hand with a regulatory process. Nor can it be carried out safely without supporting the European Union’s objectives in terms of social and territorial cohesion. From this point of view, we should like to see considerable progress in drawing up a framework directive on general interest services. We would urge those that advocate excessive liberalisation and a fast track timetable for liberalising the electricity and gas sector to be very careful with regard to the postal and rail sectors, for these form the basis of social and territorial cohesion in our countries.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, during the debate on the Oostlander report yesterday the rapporteur asked me whether I wanted to submit Amendment No 11 – which was intended as a replacement for paragraph 52 – as an addition to paragraph 52. I said at the time that I was willing to do so. Afterwards uncertainty arose about how the text of paragraph 52 would then read once Amendment No 11, again as an addition, had been adopted. To avoid any misunderstanding therefore, I should like to read out the text of paragraph 52 in English as it would read following adoption of Amendment No 11 as an addition to paragraph 52. 'Notes, in the light of the Copenhagen decision (December 2002) that the conditions for the opening of accession negotiations with Turkey are not yet in place;’ To that original paragraph the following text would be added: ‘expresses its confidence that those conditions will be met if the Turkish Government pursues with constant will and determination the necessary ongoing reforms;’.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, if there is one thing I have learnt about constituency problems since I was elected to the House, it is how very variable throughout Europe is the interpretation of Articles 5 and 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights – the right to brief detention before trial and the right to a speedy trial, the right to be released pending trial if the trial cannot proceed speedily. These rights are very differently interpreted in different parts of the Union. I come from a country in which the maximum period of detention allowed by law is 110 days. After 110 days of detention a person, if not tried, must be released and never tried for that offence again. From what I see, conditions in French and Portuguese jails are very different. People can be kept for enormously long periods of time awaiting trial. We do not really have a common culture in Europe on these important points. This connects exactly to our culture of policing. Do we have a culture of policing in which the idea is to detain people as briefly as necessary, find the evidence as quickly and expeditiously as possible and get trials moving forward, or do we have a system where people do it as it suits them best? If we could develop a common culture of policing in Europe, and if it were based on best practice, then that would be a fine thing. But, as I have said in another debate this week, the danger is that we develop a kind of general casualness, we have moved to the lowest common denominator, not the highest common factor. Let us make sure that if we have a police college it is, as Mr Posselt's report stresses, grounded in the need to develop and enhance respect for human and civil rights in our police culture. Police efficiency is not just to do with grabbing guys and putting them inside. It is to do with finding the people who actually commit crimes and proving the case against them in a civilised way, with a proper connection between prosecution services and police services. If we can get a police college for the whole of Europe to do that or begin to develop this kind of common culture that would be a very good thing. The majority of those who have spoken so far seem to think that it is vital to have a single permanent seat for the college. I see the need for a permanent seat for its administration but I want Members of the House to think seriously about whether, in the interest of a common police culture in Europe, it would be better to take everybody to one place or to have courses which move year-by-year or subject-by-subject to different police colleges and academies in different parts of the Union. That way, people begin to appreciate differences of local assumption, differences of local approach. We hope that over time our police forces will genuinely learn from each other and learn best practice from each other, not worst practice. If that could be done we would have a police academy of which we, as Europeans, might be proud. I hope that will be the result of this excellent proposal and this excellent report.

Political group: Verts-ALE
I wish to ask the Greek Presidency how the Council views the fact that Ukraine is a dangerous country for journalists to operate in. I also wonder how the Council views the fact that the fate of ten journalists, including that of Georgij Gongadze who is critical of the government, remains unknown and uninvestigated.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, Commissioner, the own-initiative report on breast cancer by the Committee on Women’s Rights and Equal Opportunities is a balanced, well-considered one. For that my special thanks go to the rapporteur, Mrs Karin Jöns. The report gives key importance to quality standards and best practice, which Community health policy can help evaluate and which can be extended throughout all the Member States. At present there are enormous disparities in the quality of treatment for breast cancer patients between Member States and regions. Regrettably, this is directly reflected in the chances of survival of women with breast cancer, which is directly affected by the disparity in access to screening, diagnosis and treatment. According to recent statistics from the World Health Organisation, approximately 80 000 women die from breast cancer in the Union every year. It is the most frequent cancer in women and the most frequent cause of death in middle-aged women in the EU. We could predict that the rise in the standard of living for women in the new Member States and the candidate countries and changes in lifestyle there will make the figures look even worse. There is an urgent need to create a network of national cancer registers to cover the entire enlarged Europe so as to obtain conclusive and comparable data as a basis for research. At present such a register only exists in seven Member States of the Union, in addition to my own country, and so not even half the citizens of the Union are covered. It is to be hoped that the Commission will target Community resources in particular at more effective research into the causes of breast cancer and forms of treatment as well as methods for assessing the effectiveness of treatment. In addition to the socio-economic and lifestyle factors the genotype is an important risk factor in breast cancer. To date, two defective genes have been identified as causing breast cancer. The European Patent Office is at present deliberating over an application to patent these breast cancer genes. Granting such a patent would be very harmful as far as research and improvements in treatment are concerned. The decision by the European Patent Office will be tremendously important. It is in the interests of all the European actors, and their duty too, to ensure that the human genetic code is not patented but is freely available for research and the development of medical treatments. Finally I would like to take this opportunity to thank Commissioner Diamantopoulou for the kind way in which you received the group of Finnish schoolchildren in April and took the trouble to come and meet them personally in Parliament. Your friendly and very warm attitude overwhelmed us all and gave these young people the inspiration and encouragement to face their problems. IN THE CHAIR: MR VIDAL-QUADRAS ROCAVice-President

Political group: PPE-DE
I had a dream, Mr President. I dreamt that Mr Berlusconi, President of the Italian Government, had a halo and so I can call him San Berlusconi. San Berlusconi said to me, ‘I know that tomorrow you are to vote on the Cercas report concerning working time and it seeks to prevent those who are exempt under the minimum working time directive from working too much. Look at me: I work all day, from six in the morning until two the following morning. See how young I am, how active I am, how alert and satisfied I am at work! My advice to you therefore is to vote against this Cercas report so that everyone can work as much as me and be as satisfied and as young as I am’. At that moment I woke up and realised it was a dream. I felt free therefore to vote according to my conscience and so, in fact, I voted in favour of the Cercas report, even though San Berlusconi advised me to vote against.

Political group: PPE-DE
It is right that Parliament should assert the need for research into the next generation Internet, considering the huge capabilities that this tool can provide for citizens and firms, especially in a Europe that needs to consolidate its presence on the Web. The proposal for a resolution, which I support, must, in addition, stress certain points, which will make it possible to better define a future scenario which, considering that the sector evolves extremely rapidly, also changes extremely rapidly and includes certain discoveries that demand abrupt changes and rethinks. However, with regard to bandwidth, it is appropriate to study the possible role in the future of the Internet of the use of satellites for two-way telecommunication as well and the use of terminals for DTT. Those who are concerned, for example, with mountain regions know that some technologies lend themselves better to use in isolated areas, where technologies such as cable are difficult, and that the new technologies are absolutely crucial to avoid marginalisation in places where it would be even more serious than elsewhere. There are many areas to cover, ranging from the widespread local use of microwave systems to interactive 'broadband' services, from the need to make the Internet more user-friendly by making it possible to access it without a computer, to the aspects of network security, which have already been studied on a number of occasions. The great caution needed is clear. Evidence of this is, for example, the explosion, which has already happened in the United States but also in some European countries as well, of the myth that the dot com market will develop exponentially. Then there is the sensitive but key subject of standards to regulate the Web, intended not to restrict free space but to prevent abuse and improper or even vandalistic use. Finally, it must be remembered that the Internet must combine the globalisation process, which is an inherent part of its development, with the need for multimedia services at regional and local levels, thus providing that proximity and closeness to the citizen that is a genuine asset and must be enhanced.

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, Mr Maat’s report is excellent and summarises the legitimate and powerful criticism that has to be directed, in the first place, against the Council of Ministers and the Member States. It is disgraceful that those of us in a civilised and cultivated part of the world, calling itself Europe, should treat animals in the way we do. Moreover, no one can convince me that it is economically necessary. Presumably, it is economic madness. I want first of all to deal with Paragraph 14. Anyone who drives when drunk loses his driving licence immediately. How can a driver arrive with a load including dead animals and yet retain both his driving licence and his licence to transport animals? That is absurd! Paragraph 20 is about ending the payment of export refunds in respect of live animals. That is a first small step able, in actual fact, to be taken by the EU.

Political group: ELDR
In order to ensure the sustainability of fisheries resources, it is important that we are provided with detailed information and credible scientific opinions regarding the current state and ongoing development of these resources. The overriding concern is reliability of information, which has often been called into question, thereby creating unwanted tension between investigators, scientists and fishermen. There are therefore two crucial issues: - The first entails fishermen taking an active role in the management of fishing effort and participating in the evaluation of studies into resources in conjunction with investigators and scientists. Fishermen have the most to gain from the sustainability of resources and from stock recovery measures. It is therefore important that we create suitable bodies that enable effective communication between all those concerned; - The second entails a thorough evaluation of the socio-economic impact of stock recovery measures or measures aimed at reducing the fishing effort. The implementation of these measures, which is sometimes voluntary on the part of the fishermen, as happens in Portugal in the case of sardines, requires compensation at public, national and Community level. It is also necessary to increase EU funding in research in the fisheries sector and to create the material and human conditions required to improve scientific advice.

Political group: GUE-NGL
draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market. – Mr President, we have reached that time of the evening at which I am sure Commissioner Bolkestein, Mrs Ayuso González, you and I can all think of better things to do with ethyl alcohol than talk about it. However, we are fated to spend at least a few more minutes in conversation. I would like to express profound sympathy with Mrs Ayuso González for the amount of work and time she has put into this report, only to discover that it was not possible to construct an adequate legal base to bring in both the sources of ethyl alcohol. As I understand it, ethyl alcohol produced for industrial use comes more or less equally from agricultural sources and from non-agricultural sources, chiefly from the oil industry. In that context, it would be necessary to find a dual legal base to deal with both together. Personally I think she is right that it would be absurd for the Community to try to deal with this single identical substance differently according to the two alternative sources. On the other hand, the economics of production and the industrial circumstances of production are quite different, as I am sure Commissioner Bolkestein knows even better than I from his own manifold past experience. So it is quite an important question to try and find a way of dealing with the whole market in a way that is sensitive to both sources of production. It would have been objectionable – I know from contacts of my own with the oil industry in Scotland – to spatchcock the oil industry-produced ethanol into an agricultural organisation which had been set up without regard to circumstances in the other sector, so we need a two-handed approach to this. Thus it is absolutely right to suggest that the Commission should put its thinking cap on again and come back with a new look at whatever is needed in the way of keeping an eye on the whole alcohol market at this difficult time, dealing even-handedly with both sources of production.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, I welcome the Commission’s two proposals on these two fisheries agreements, particularly the agreement with Guinea. I should like to begin by highlighting and expressing my support for the innovations introduced by the current agreement, which dedicate 50% of the European Union’s total support to specific actions aimed at the sustainable development of the sector. Amongst other new aspects of this agreement, I also wish to highlight the innovation of providing an additional premium of EUR 370 million in the event that the Republic of Guinea implements a range of actions designed to reduce its overall fishing effort. As Guinea is a country with an annual available production of 250 000 tonnes of fish, and since its small-scale fishing fleet only has the capacity to catch 50 000 tonnes, this is clearly an agreement of mutual convenience, which avoids any conflict of interest and which also enables Guinea to obtain exceptional financing to develop its fisheries sector. We see from this that, apart from the importance of fisheries agreements for the European Union, they can also be used as instruments for development in these countries. As a Portuguese citizen, I am bound to regret the fact in this context that the Commission and the Council are so far behind in their negotiations on the agreement with Morocco. I am also unhappy at the difficulties being raised over other Member States having access to fisheries belonging to Greenland, the agreement with whom has hardly been used, and which is shortly due for renewal. It is nevertheless important that the requirements of supervision and control, as well as the programmes designed to control the reduction of the fishing effort are also imposed on the other countries that fish in the waters of these developing countries and not only on the Member States of the European Union. I therefore ask the European Union, during its negotiations, to make an extra effort to ensure that this rule is applied to everyone and not just to us.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, like the chairman of our Committee on Fisheries, I too have the privilege of speaking late this evening and I have the special privilege of acting on behalf of my coordinator, Mr Varela Suanzes-Carpegna. I should like to concur with what the chairman of the Committee on Fisheries has said, also in relation to the very difficult issue that is being discussed there. If you consider the situation in those coastal strips with much domestic unrest and wars, it remains to be seen to what extent we, once the situation has improved, can also employ fisheries policy to improve the situation in the country itself. Provided the money we invest in the fisheries agreements is well spent, Europe could play a greater role on that score too. On behalf of the Group of the European People’s Party , I am disappointed about the amendments on this subject tabled by the . I would have preferred to see more of a social component in them, and I back anything that can improve the situation in the African countries in relation to fisheries agreements. However, it is essential for all aspects to be discussed in depth. Once again, though, I wish to concur with the words of the chairman of the Committee on Fisheries. I have also noticed that these are widely supported, and I would ask the Commission on the one hand, for an all-out effort for the African countries, including a wise spending plan of the money from the fisheries agreements, but on the other, we consider it essential for the social components also to be taken into consideration. I am therefore looking forward to the Commission’s reaction, as well as Parliament’s.

Political group: PPE-DE