GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, just a couple of points in view of the lateness of the hour. The first, which the speakers before me have already touched on, is that citizens' parliaments stand for openness and therefore public accessibility, for democratic legitimacy, comprehensive controls, and lawmaking, for the exchange of opinions and competing ideas, for information and communication. Our Rules of Procedure serve to shape our procedures in such a way that we can perform our duties. Not only do we have to regulate our procedures, but we also have to acquire the competences to do justice to the demands made of us. As I see it, this may well be about the Rules of Procedure, but, in a parliamentary democracy founded on party democracy and thus also on parliamentarianism dominated by political groups, it is about the balance and interaction of work in committees, in the groups and in plenary. It is about the interaction of electoral law, the statute for MEPs, about having the same rules on incompatibility and about what we are doing here, because we may well be able to have common rules, but different presuppositions lead to different ways of doing things. I therefore welcome the strengthening of the legislative procedures and of legislative debate, not at the expense of parliamentary control and political discourse, but in a balanced fashion. I therefore agree completely with Mrs Randzio-Plath's view that we have to be careful that a large majority in committee does not result in diminished debate in plenary, as we will otherwise be impairing the creation of a broad majority and putting on a sham debate beforehand. (Applause) Parliamentarians in the committees, in the groups, and in plenary must work together. (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, Belarus is the only one of the countries bordering on the enlarged European Union with which we cannot have normal relations, and President Lukashenko has set at nought all democratic rules since the day he took office. Parliamentary and presidential elections served only to prop up his autocratic regime and give it the outward appearance of legitimacy. After he abrogated the democratic constitution in 1996, the OSCE sent a mission of observers to the country with the aim of re-establishing dialogue and helping to restore the foundations of a democratic order. Its task was an unambitious one, but even that was too much for President Lukashenko. Parliament, the Commission and the Council worked closely together with the OSCE mission, and the experience increased our regard for its achievements, as repeated attempts were made, in a situation with few – if any – prospects, to set up dialogue, even if only a tenuous one, to at least work towards the minimum criteria we had established, and to find a way to restore normal relations. Yet even that was too much for Mr Lukashenko, who made it unmistakably clear, in a major speech last month, that he wants no more OSCE missions in the country once the presidential elections are over. It is simply not as if we are dealing here with a country that is not a member of the OSCE and has not acknowledged its rules; on the contrary, he himself subscribed to the OSCE rules and democratic standards. This has not stopped him putting the media out of action, meaning that any dissident is at his mercy. I believe that we must protest vigorously about this, and it is clear that normal relations with the European Union will not be possible if dialogue on the basis of the OSCE mission is not begun.

Political group: Verts-ALE
We have abstained from voting on Mr Andersson’s report on harassment at the workplace. We are basically well disposed towards the European Union. European integration provides an opportunity to find solutions to cross-border problems, such as those concerning the environment, trade, movement across borders, human rights and conflict management. We also believe in the principle of subsidiarity whereby decisions are to be taken as close as possible to those whom they affect. That is why we are actively pursuing the issue of a constitution for the European Union in which the distribution of responsibilities is clear to everyone. It must be perfectly clear to all citizens that the EU must only attend to those issues which it is best qualified to deal with, namely the cross-border issues. Harassment at the workplace is, of course, a problem, and as much as possible must be done in various ways to do away with such harassment. We do not, however, believe that measures to combat this problem are best taken at EU level. For us, it is important for the EU to concentrate instead on areas in which it can really do some good. This is not such an area. Report Coelho (A5-0233/2001)

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, on behalf of the Group, I welcome the fact that we have reached an end result in the conciliation procedure for the ALTENER II Programme. Firstly, however, I would like to extend warm thanks to the rapporteur, Mr Langen, for the truly excellent work he has done on this report. I would also like to thank the leader of the delegation in the Conciliation Committee, Mr Provan. For as Mr Langen said just now, we certainly had a tough fight on our hands in the Conciliation Committee. However, we can see today that the conciliation end result quite clearly bears the trademark of the European Parliament throughout. Mr Langen mentioned that a series of Parliament’s demands and points it had to make relating to content were adopted and – as has already been mentioned – we were almost able to meet the Council halfway on even the most contentious point, that of the financing for this multiannual programme for the promotion of renewable energy sources in the Community. This is not satisfactory – I would like to make that quite clear. However, we agreed to this compromise because it was important to us to enable this programme to be launched very soon indeed. For in the course of the next few years, the proportion of renewable energy sources is to double, accounting for at least 12% of energy consumption. This is the European Union’s declared aim. That being the case, since ALTENER is the only EU programme to have the exclusive aim of promoting renewable energy sources, it will certainly be have a key role. In the first place, this new five-year programme will entail extending the actions in the ALTENER I programme. This will include extending the exchange of information and expertise between operators in the renewable energy sources sector, developing local and regional energy agencies, and establishing new networks for approving financial support, to name but a few examples. To my mind though, what is particularly important about the ALTENER II programme are the new actions for relieving market saturation by renewable energies and those for implementing, supporting and monitoring the Community strategy and the Community action plan. We now have available to us a working paper from the Commission’s services on a breakthrough campaign, which is in fact a crucial element of this Community strategy. It contains plans for financial support for all the main renewable energy sources sectors. It is very important for this ALTENER programme to go hand in hand with this campaign and to support it. The overall investment costs for this campaign are estimated to be approximately EUR 30 billion. 75%-80% of this is to come from private sources, and this will be supplemented by public funds from the Member States and from the regions. In this respect, the ALTENER programme will be able to create new incentives and smooth the way for investment, and help us to realise our ambition, in the interests of environmental protection, the economy and creating new jobs.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, I wish to protest about the Greek Presidency's intolerable attack on Cuba. This is a case of open intervention in the internal affairs of this country, incitement to subversion and paving the way for military intervention. The Presidency is keeping quiet about the provocative activities of the US representative in Cuba where, as he himself admits, he is recruiting agents by paying them millions of dollars to turn against their homeland. While demonstrating such sensitivity about the death penalty and human rights in Cuba, it will sign two judicial cooperation agreements with the USA in Washington on 25 June. Thus, it is handing over the citizens of the Member States, bound hand and foot, to a country in which death penalties are executed on a daily basis, thousands are held without trial or defence, Cuban terrorists and hijackers roam free and Cuban patriots are held without defence because they uncovered plans for American terrorist activities against Cuban leaders, not to mention the hundreds in Guantanamo. Hypocrisy? Complicity? Without doubt both! The millions of Cubans who recently demonstrated their support for the revolution in Havana, and the manifestations of solidarity with Cuba throughout the world are the speechless response to the presumptive invaders and their European accomplices.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, the proposal for a directive that is currently before us is a much–watered-down version of what Parliament undermined eighteen months ago, unfortunately only by one vote. The current proposal leaves a great deal of scope for Member States and companies themselves, such as a company's optional, or even temporary, permission to take defensive mechanisms when it is faced with what it views as a hostile takeover bid. The question can therefore be posed whether takeovers are still to be possible at European level and whether this directive will, in practice, make any actual change to the current situation. Nevertheless, I think that we should approve this proposal, even if it were to finally end the discussion in the European Union about takeover bids – which has been going on for thirteen years now – and set up a first, albeit hesitant, regulation. According to a Flemish saying, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. The takeover directive is indeed an important component of the Lisbon agenda on a strong, competitive European Union and is essential to the further completion of the European internal market. We should therefore ensure that this directive enters into force as soon as possible, so that we, along with the market operators, can immediately learn whether, and how, we can give this regulation more depth.

Political group: ELDR
chair of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs. – Mr President, Mr Duisenberg, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it is ten years now since the inception of monetary union. Today we are reviewing an annual report based on a successful monetary policy. In institutional, organisational and monetary policy terms, the European Central Bank has acted prudently while showing the way forward, even if not everyone would agree with all the decisions made by the ECB. However, more could be done to improve the transparency of monetary policy. This is not just a question of improving communication, it is also a matter of providing clearer explanations. That is why I am pleased, Mr Duisenberg, that you have today promised once again that we will get inflation forecasts and that progress will be made with publishing the econometric models. And of course I would still like us to see the summary minutes of meetings, so that we can follow all the arguments. The annual report states very clearly that the euro has made its mark at international level and is already the second most important currency in the world. The report also clearly emphasises that the European Central Bank has achieved its priority objective of ensuring price stability. However, it seems to me that the ECB’s secondary objective is not yet totally clear to everyone. After all, the rate of inflation is low and under control despite the increase in oil prices. This is very different to the situation prevailing at the time of the oil crisis in the 1970s. The ECB must therefore finally make it clear how and subject to what conditions it intends to support the Union’s economic policy and the objectives of achieving economic growth and employment. After all, money exists to serve people, and not the other way round. For that reason support is needed for the macroeconomic framework, and the ECB has a role to play here. As yet, the ECB has still not provided an explanation as to why price stability is more strictly defined in the euro area than in the US, and why it does not provide greater protection for the fledgling European growth process. Europe needs a sustained period of high growth if we are to successfully combat unemployment. After all, full employment is once again a possibility at last. An ECB stability-oriented monetary policy has every chance of giving an impulse to investment and growth, and thus making a real contribution to achieving an appropriate and properly balanced policy mix. What contribution can the ECB make, and does it intend to make? Why does it not follow the example set by the US Federal Reserve Bank in supporting the upturn in the economy? Or could it be – and I would like an answer to this – that the European Central Bank is opposed to growth rates of over 3% because it thinks they could jeopardise its stability policy?

Political group: PSE
Mr President, as we know, this COM in bananas is of particular importance to the ACP producer countries and some outermost regions, as is the case of Madeira, both in terms of production and employment and in terms of the environment, because of the maintenance of productive vegetation, a fundamental issue for regional development itself. Solving the current problem of the future of the common organisation of the market by means of an import regime based on a uniform tariff would entail a serious risk that banana prices would fall on the Community market, which would require an increase in compensatory aid given to producers in the outermost regions and entail a review of the Financial Perspective approved within Agenda 2000 for financing the common agricultural policy. It is therefore right that the Commission should continue not to insist on its proposals or banana production will disappear, with serious consequences on the social, economic and environmental fronts, as the rapporteur, Mr Dary, has pointed out. Hence, the transitional period should be about fifteen years, certainly not less than ten, and the compensatory aid should include guaranteed earnings for Community producers and a market for the produce of the outermost regions, and so aid should also be included for the bodies that market the bananas produced there. We shall vote for the proposals and this report in the hope that the Commission will review its position.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, I had not intended to ask to speak today. Political freedom involves allowing the expression of opinions that we find disagreeable. Today, I hear speakers who are unwilling to hear a Member of this House say what his electors expect of him. I think that Mr Gorostiaga has been elected to show that there is another side to what others are saying concerning the Basque country, and that is what he is doing, whether we agree with him or not. I might add that I have not heard him inciting people to commit murder, something that marks a line which none may cross, but I do plead for tolerance for divergent opinions with which we do not agree. It is only on that basis that Parliament is able to function.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, Commissioner, Mrs Miguélez Ramos, the fisherman’s profession or vocation, call it what you will, has always been one of the toughest and most dangerous in the world. History, chronicles and the literature of all maritime and fishing nations are full of references to acts of heroism, to suffering, to tragedies and shipwrecks at sea involving both small and large fishing boats. Fishing communities keep alive the memories of tragic events, which they pass on from generation to generation. Today, fortunately, modern technology can substantially reduce the danger, the uncomfortable conditions, accidents and shipwrecks. We now have the means to act, as long as there is the desire to act in this field. Mrs Miguélez Ramos’s report is one of the most useful, appropriate, intelligent and well-drafted own-initiative reports that I have had the task of reading and studying amongst the many own-initiative reports that abound in this Parliament. This is not an empty rhetorical exercise. It is an exemplary text and the rapporteur deserves our utmost praise and gratitude. I therefore support not only her diagnosis, but also all the proposals, recommendations, encouragement, suggested measures and warnings contained in the report and I fully agree with its motives. If the Commission and the Council give a favourable welcome to the content of the report and put it into practice, in a few years we will have fewer accidents, fewer deaths, fewer shipwrecks and less risk at sea. We will not, of course, be able to eliminate risk entirely, but the accident rate will be greatly reduced, fishing will take on a more human face and its workers will be given more dignity. Congratulations, Mrs Miguélez Ramos.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, I would like to thank the President-in-Office of the Council for the exhaustive information he has provided me with this afternoon. In fact, the concern of this Parliament, and in particular the Committee on Development and Cooperation, is – given the current situation in Africa, essentially in its central regions (Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda, etc.), in terms of AIDS – how the Council, and of course the Commission, is going to control the fund of EUR 120 million which we approved in this House. Since you have told me that EUR 60 million has already been provided and that the first report is going to be carried out now, in April, from then on we will be very attentive to that control.

Political group: PSE
My vote against the agreement which will allow more lorries on the Swiss roads as from 1 January is unrelated to the number of permits which Dutch hauliers managed to secure in the process. Although it is likely that they will consider the number 23 428 far too low, they will nevertheless be pleased with the room for growth provided to them. This agreement forms part of an initiative by means of which Switzerland and Norway will increasingly take on the guise of EU Member States. The only difference is that they do not pay a contribution and do not have a right to vote. As a result, their governments can continue to reassure a critical population of their on-going independence, although that is less and less the case. However, far more important is the fact that this agreement will generate a great deal of extra freight traffic on the roads. After Austria, the Alps barrier is now also disappearing in Switzerland. That country had previously opted for discouraging road traffic and improving rail connections for freight transit traffic. Allowing an increasing number of larger lorries on the roads will force Switzerland to invest more in motorways. I am not at all convinced by the fact that large Swiss environmental organisations have been sweet-talked into this with the argument that the revenue from levies will benefit the expansion of rail. This agreement is attractive to a number of companies but detrimental to the environment and democracy. - General Budget for 2001

Political group: GUE-NGL
I thank the Minister for his reply. My question is an SΟS. This is literally the chronicle of a death foretold. Three men were imprisoned in 1989. Two have died, the most recent from tonsillitis in October 2001. Twenty prisoners are kept in cells measuring 3 by 4 metres. I call on the Minister, on behalf of this prisoner suffering a living death and on behalf of any Spaniards or other Community citizens, to intervene politically with the Egyptian authorities so that they can serve out their sentences in prisons in the Member States of the European Union. Otherwise, Minister, if they get buried in bureaucracy or under the numerous other demands on our attention, we shall end up as accomplices. It is a matter for the Greek Government, but the Greek Government does not have the necessary clout, whereas the European Union has a much greater chance of succeeding.

Political group: GUE-NGL
-turn and table an oral amendment that is the opposite of its original amendment? At the same time, the Group seems to be are disagreeing completely with its Conservative colleagues – and the shadow rapporteur was a Conservative. What state has my amendment ...

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, I think we should begin by congratulating ourselves not only on the quality of Mrs Glase's work, but also on the fact that this subject has come before Parliament. We are living in a Europe that is increasingly closer to its citizens and therefore we cannot omit to concern ourselves with employment, as employment, together with health, is one of the main concerns of the citizens and, I dare say, especially of those who are unemployed because they have lost their job or perhaps never had one. We should ask the question whether those who are working in the hidden economy, working on the black market or, to use the most common term, carrying out undeclared work, really have an adequate job? I do not think this is the right time to detail the harm done by undeclared work to the public funds and those carrying it out, due to their own position of insecurity, and to other employers, competitors or otherwise, and society in general. The economic causes of undeclared work, increased income for workers, the opportunity to save on tax and social contributions or the reduction in costs for the company, are not unrelated to its existence and a significantly higher rate of growth than that of the legal or official economy. To refer briefly to the sectors or groups in which undeclared work has the most scope for expansion, we need to include multi-job situations where the income obtained from this illegal work is supplementary; economically inactive people who have greater flexibility in terms of time and the case of the unemployed who want an additional income, often turning down offers of legal work. We must also consider the situation of illegal immigrants who cannot carry out other forms of work. In addition to these easily visible situations, it is assumed that there are also many cases of production decentralisation, outsourcing or subcontracting which, in a less direct, less visible way, can lead to undeclared work. A situation which must be prevented and which I would like to consider is that of the new type of work via the Internet, teleworking, part-time work, which can be an easy breeding-ground for undeclared work. Mr President, we must anticipate this, as Europe must opt for secure, stable, quality work, and undeclared work is neither stable nor secure and nor, of course, does it demonstrate solidarity.

Political group: PPE-DE