GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I wish to congratulate Mrs Van Lancker on her report. It is an excellent piece of work, which is very much in line with the final statements of the Cairo and Beijing United Nations conferences and is intended to ensure the exchange of best practices in the field of reproductive health and in the defence of women’s rights and dignity. As recently became clear in Portugal when 17 women were subjected to the shame of court proceedings, with the investigation of their private lives and with the accusation of having had an illegal abortion – which was not proved, except in one case – in which the young woman was unacceptably convicted, this is not the way to combat illegal abortion. Another reason is that those who have the financial means can always go to a country where the procedure is practised legally. Portuguese women, for example, go to neighbouring Spain. Whilst it is true that abortion, as the report states, must not be encouraged as a method of family planning, it is crucial that a health and social policy be put in place that enables women to resort less to abortion, specifically through the promotion of sexual education and of family planning properly targeting young people, so as to prevent unwanted pregnancies, specifically amongst adolescents. It is equally crucial, however, that the voluntary termination of pregnancy is legal, safe and universally accessible in order to safeguard reproductive health and women’s rights, as the report states, and that all women have access to this procedure, regardless of their economic and financial situation, and not only those who can afford to have it done in a good clinic in a neighbouring country. This is hypocrisy and must end as soon as possible.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, obviously I do not share with the rapporteur in offering congratulations to the ECB. As for presenting the purely formal actions of the managers of the European Central Bank to involve the European Parliament as if it were the expression of democratic control, that is just a feeble joke. Having said that, I feel bound to object in particular to the virtual declaration of war against the workers and the unemployed of the European Union in the form of the objective declared by Mr Noyer, the Vice-President of the ECB, when he speaks, and I quote, of the need to “reduce rigidities in labour markets” or even for “a break with often deeply rooted habits and allegedly acquired rights”. Well, we know that the rights he is talking about are simply the rights to a job and to a wage which affords a person a decent living. These gentlemen of the Central Bank act like the spokesmen for the employers who are effectively in the process of reducing “rigidities in labour markets” by axing thousands of jobs, such as Michelin, Renault-Nissan, Alsthom, Rhône-Poulenc, and Hoest Marion Roussel and many others even now, or by propagating the precariousness of jobs by means of wages which cast an increasing proportion of the population into ever greater poverty while the fortunes of major shareholders continue to grow. Gentlemen, beware, their attitude will ultimately trigger the reactions they deserve among workers and the unemployed. I hope that in all the countries of the European Union these reactions will unite the victims of the policy of employers.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, I repeat that, because the session services have rejected the possibility of adding to the report the answer we received from the Council during the reading by the committee, I am forced to take the floor instead. I want what the Council said added to the minutes, so that my fellow MEPs might know what the answer was. A long conflict between the institutions about what constitutes a document and what are more incidental papers has been resolved. The Council had refused to give documentation to the complainant, Mr Tony Bunyan, on the grounds that the documents were ephemeral or only reflected the thinking of individuals. Everyone who has come into contact with the decision-making process knows that precisely these documents are important. Following the reading by the Committee on Petitions, the Council has promised to introduce a new practice. The Council’s list of documents is to be complete and so also include texts distributed at the meetings of the Council. This means that the arrangement we adopted previously will operate still better and that the public will more easily be able to follow the decision-making process. I would cite the letter sent by Mr Brunmayr, Director-General of the Council Secretariat. Mr President, in the light of the Ombudsman's special report, all Directors-General of the Council Secretariat have received the following instructions: 'All texts submitted to the Council or its preparatory bodies and which affect the decision-making process or reflect the state of work regarding a certain dossier shall be produced as standard documents. In conformity with the existing internal rules for the establishment of Council documents, the references of all these documents will be automatically entered into the Council's public register. All room documents, non-papers and the like submitted during meetings of the Council or of its preparatory bodies shall be mentioned in the outcome of proceedings of those meetings or in a list to be annexed thereto.' That is a great success for Parliament, the Council and the complainant, and there is good cause for adding the matter to the minutes.

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, I wish to begin by taking this opportunity to congratulate the rapporteur on this report. This debate has certainly stimulated interest in what the Commissioner described as one of the most important relationships that exists: the relationship between the European Union and the United States. The rapporteur was right to state that there was no long-term view. At this moment in time we must appreciate how difficult it is for Americans to achieve that long-term view because of the events in the United States on 11 September, which, to some extent, meant they turned their attention to other issues, such as their 'homeland' security. At times we Europeans do not understand the effects that 11 September had on the people of the United States. That does not mean that we cannot move forward in cooperation, indeed, we must cooperate and pursue our dialogue. Of course, there are many issues that we will always disagree on. However, we must pursue our dialogue to try to resolve those issues. No doubt there will be other issues, such as the situation this week with the new Farm Bill, which will cause tremendous problems for the European Union in the longer term. The steel issue will be resolved eventually. Thus we have to continue the dialogue and face the challenge. We must not allow the issues as they come forward to distract us in any way from this vital relationship between the European Union and the United States. There is a challenge here for us. Parliament has a modest role to play. I am pleased that the Commissioner recognised that. We have to take up that challenge and work together with the Commission and the Council to ensure that we have a long-term view.

Political group: PPE-DE
This report requires the certification of machinery and lifts to be based on criteria that will provide greater security for users. We therefore voted in favour, even though the recommended measures will apply to new machines alone and only very rarely to old appliances. Despite the fact that the report stresses the obligation to maintain operational appliances in good working order, the likelihood of fulfilling this desire can, however, be questioned. There have been reports recently in the French press of a series of accidents involving lifts in council flats, in which several people died. The French lift trade union stated that, for some time, it has condemned chronic staff shortages within service departments, whose technicians are responsible for maintaining two or three times as many appliances as 20 years ago. In addition to this, the standard of council accommodation is deteriorating, like all council equipment, and it is being increasingly neglected by the public authorities. The report’s declared intention, which we support, to bring safety up to the highest possible level should therefore be backed up with coercive measures to prevent the sale of dangerous machinery and with the obligation to provide sufficient technical and human resources to maintain this equipment, to replace it as and when necessary.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, this is a report that is certainly of great importance. It only remains to be seen whether it will have a negative or positive impact on real life. Then it will be a question of real companies and real people’s jobs, real families’ livelihoods and genuine climatic change. It is an experiment, in which the EU cannot afford to fail. In principle I eagerly support emissions trading, but it has to be said that this proposal is worryingly incomplete. The Commission proposal, among other things, failed to answer the following questions. Firstly, there is the competitiveness of companies that implemented environmental action in the early stages, taking special account of the limits for individual countries as a result of burden sharing. Then there are the competition-distorting factors of burden sharing among the Member States generally, the relationship between emissions trading and the fiscal interests of individual states, and that between emissions trading and the free energy market. Then, too, there are the issues of the massive transfers of income arising from cooperative action between different operators and states, enlargement, the EU shielding itself from attacks from third country operators or Soros-type speculators, and matters to do with legal protection, and access to justice. The latter the committee fortunately accepted in my proposal. In addition to the questions that still remain unclear, the proposal seems to confuse the goals and means of achieving them, the national level and that of business, and market instruments and traditional administration based on control. In confusing these it serves its purpose poorly and needlessly puts a burden on the objective itself, which is to reduce emissions, regarding which European operators have until now been unanimous. Uncommonly burdensome levels of bureaucracy accompanying the emissions trading scheme, bureaucracy that Parliament, regrettably, has not been willing to bear the responsibility for breaking down, promise additional difficulties. I have been especially anxious about the possibility of carbon leakage. Without my amendment the directive would not distinguish between carbon dioxide emissions that result from the use of coal for energy and its use as part of an industrial process. As a result the position of the European steel industry, which meets excellent global ecological standards, would be in danger of being weakened in the global markets, causing not only economic but also massive ecological harm.

Political group: PPE-DE
Commissioner, permit me to put your comments in a context less formal than this one. You have told us that it is not necessary to ask the turkey to prepare for Christmas, and that is what we are in the process of verifying. The IGC has reached the limits of its powers. For this Parliament, the essential thing now is to preserve the balance that has been achieved within the Convention. I prefer the word ‘balance’ rather than ‘compromise’. It seems to me that if there is a Convention spirit, a European spirit reigning over this IGC, I would hope that it is that spirit which enables us to identify the listening phase that we are passing through now as being the phase that allows us to confirm the fact that, if we all pursue our individual arguments to their logical conclusion, our collective decision-making process will reach an impasse. If that is the case, and if this listening phase is simply there so that we can all pursue our arguments to their logical conclusion in order to confirm the fact that we are moving towards an impasse, then there is still some hope for us. On the other hand, I am afraid that, if we do not manage to take that step, we shall risk slipping backwards. You know that in my country the debate is becoming heated. In my party, some people have already decided to say yes, while others have already decided to say no, and some people prefer to wait and see. In the final analysis there could be a move away, not just from the text of the Convention, but also from the Treaty of Nice, as regards qualified majority voting, the powers of Parliament on budgetary matters or the introduction of a threshold of 66% of the population as the definition of a qualified majority. Quite frankly, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, what we want is for this IGC to concentrate on the issues that really are on the agenda, and those subjects, as Mr Napolitano has reminded us, are the subjects which the Convention has not dealt with, in other words the fourth part. On this point, I am very fearful of the status quo. There seems to be a certain degree of audacity, and it lies precisely in the balance of the proposed Convention. That audacity is to use the bridging clause as a revision clause. What I would suggest to both of you is that you should examine the option of inserting a third subparagraph into Article IV-7.3, which would be worded – at least in spirit, though the legal form would have to be confirmed – as follows, ‘The European Council, on its own initiative or at the request of the European Parliament, may decide unanimously to authorise the Intergovernmental Conference to adopt the amendments to be made to the Treaty establishing the Constitution by a super-qualified majority and to make provision for its ratification under the same conditions’.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, in the European Union there is a network of so-called rural carrefours, which basically provide European citizens involved in this issue in rural areas with information on agricultural policies. There are 138 in collaboration with public and private bodies, none of them profit-making, and they have been very surprised by a decision of the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Press and Communication, of 29 September, which withdraws the aid they were receiving to meet the operating costs of these rural centres or carrefours. I believe that this Parliament should express its concern, because one of the most important resources we have for coming closer to the citizens is currently being seriously hindered by this Commission decision. I would ask you, therefore, to intervene in relation to this issue and to ensure the good functioning of these centres, for the sake of informing citizens in these rural areas and the European Union’s agricultural policies.

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, Commissioner, I am able to say straight away that I support the resolution. The resolution deals with those aspects we are discussing in Parliament and, in general, with what gives rise to the problems in the regions when we implement such dramatic decisions concerning certain fish stocks – in this case, cod in particular. There can be no doubt that there must be a balance in the marine environment. There must be a balance in the stocks. Clearly, such dramatic decisions can, however, be damaging to the regions and to those communities that depend upon fisheries and the industry surrounding fisheries. The EU must therefore intervene and raise some of these problems. In that connection, I should also like to draw attention to the fact that fisheries-based industry and gutting and canning firms must have raw materials, and it is therefore now time for us to review the tariff barriers that prevent the raw materials from reaching our companies in the EU. Price mechanisms and tariff barriers mean that the prices for these raw materials are very much higher than the prices for the same raw materials on the world market.

Political group: ELDR
Madam President, yesterday I wrote to you to report certain facts which I believe deserve consideration in this Parliament. According to information received from the services of the sitting of Tuesday 26 October, an unidentified person approached those services to withdraw a motion for a resolution which had been presented by the and UEN groups, as well as the motion for a resolution presented by the group, without the consent nor the agreement of any of the signatories and, what is more serious, these motions for resolutions were replaced with a supposed joint motion for a resolution, without signatures, which contained, in addition to a whole series of names of MEPs which had been added, those of some of the signatories of the first motion for a resolution. Madam President, I had to find out about these facts through a journalist who rang from Spain. Madam President, I am not going to describe the behaviour of these MEPs who can name themselves as co-authors without having added a dot or a comma to the text of the resolution. This is an action which speaks for itself and is an example of active parliamentary manoeuvring, if you will permit the irony. My question, Madam President, has to do with the procedure. Does the procedure followed in this Parliament allow these things to happen? Because personally, I would have loved to have been a co-signatory of the text of the Spanish Constitution and through this procedure, Madam President, I could have been precisely that.

Political group: PSE
I would like to thank the President-in-Office of the Council, and I would personally like to welcome him and the Portuguese Presidency. Please allow me to remark on how well-versed and well-informed he is on European affairs. Unfortunately, in my case, he did not provide what I would call a satisfactory answer. Since the Council recognises the fact that culture is a major economic asset, it should, in my view, demonstrate this in practice. Saying that the cultural dimension is governed by the principle of subsidiarity and that it is therefore national governments who are responsible is, I am afraid, just an excuse. My question, which has not been answered, is why, when the European Parliament is looking to increase appropriations to fund cultural programmes within the European Union, the Council and the Commission are cutting back on appropriations and at times cutting them out altogether. This is a true example of the Council’s indifference towards culture, despite its assurances to the contrary that it is a matter to which it attaches great importance. I would therefore like to ask the Council if it is prepared henceforth to support culture with the same readiness as it supported bananas, hops, cows and Indian hemp.

Political group: PPE-DE
Madam President, García Márquez, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, wrote a book entitled “The General in his Labyrinth”. It referred to the life of the liberator, Simón Bolívar. Reading Annex IV of the European Council of Cologne gives the impression that, on the subject of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, the Council is also in the middle of something of a labyrinth. I am sure that the institutions will be capable in the end of finding their way out of the labyrinth, more or less willingly. The problem is not with the institutions which in the end will be able to find their way out of the labyrinth of the Council with regard to the Charter of Fundamental Rights. The problem is with the citizens, with the frustration which can be added to that which they already feel with regard to certain issues relating to European construction. I therefore believe that it is essential that in Tampere decisions are taken to clarify the situation, that they be steps forward with regard to the already positive decision taken in Cologne on the character, the content, the relationship with the Intergovernmental Conference and the procedures for the drawing up and approval, of the Charter of Fundamental Rights. This Charter must be binding and actionable. It must reinforce the rights of the citizens and, at the end of the day, of European citizenship. It must encompass all those who live and work in the Union. It must be connected therefore with the Intergovernmental Conference, so that the Treaty of Amsterdam may be revised. This Charter must benefit from the active participation of the European Parliament, involving a sufficient number of its Members so that all the political tendencies of the Union may be represented. And above all, the Charter must be approved. The term “proclamation”, which was used in Cologne, is clearly insufficient. From here on – I repeat – we must ensure that the Council finds it way out of its labyrinth.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, I am extremely worried that worldwide there are increasing attempts to resolve conflicts using military means. Russia is no exception in this, which is particularly painful for the European ; it is acting as it sees fit and no differently from NATO in Yugoslavia. I consider the applause which you gave Mr Solana this morning and now the applause for the speech made by Mr Cohn-Bendit to be opportunism of the worst kind. I simply must say this! To reverse the trend, that is away from the military and towards conflict prevention and peaceful conflict settlement, is the crucial challenge facing this European Parliament. We have logically assessed the war in Chechnya and we have also deferred our decision on further expansion of cooperation with Russia. We expect the same of the Council. Yesterday’s declaration by the Council is a positive sign but it is too late. It is to be hoped that the Council does not need as long to follow up our proposal to freeze the expansion of relations and the TACIS programmes for Russia until such time as the weapons finally fall silent. The attacks on refugees and residential areas, the closing of the borders and the hindrance of international aid organisations providing humanitarian aid not only contravene the Geneva Convention on the protection of civilians in war zones and other international obligations but are quite simply inhuman and totally unacceptable. I consider it self-evident and indispensable that the European Union increase its humanitarian aid for the people of this region. However, we must not release Russia from its responsibility to protect and provide for refugees and itself to care for the people in the war zone. The same also applies for the reconstruction of the country.

Political group: GUE-NGL
We fundamentally reject the principle of allowing chocolate to be produced throughout the Member States using a percentage of vegetable fats other than cocoa butter. This is for reasons connected with safeguarding the legitimate interests of cocoa-producing countries and also reasons relating to consumer protection. It is quite clear that a step of this kind would inevitably have an adverse effect on cocoa-producing countries. Furthermore, and this is the key reason for our views, consideration has not even been given to a study on the impact of such a measure on developing countries that produce cocoa. At the same time, allowing up to 5% vegetable fats other than cocoa butter to be used in chocolate production sets a dangerous precedent, given that, in the long term, it may lead not just to the use of a higher percentage of these fats than set at present, but it may also open the way to chocolate being produced with other kinds of fat in future, including even genetically modified fats. Furthermore, it is clear that there is still no reliable method for testing the quantity of such fats used in chocolate production, whilst there is no requirement for clear, compulsory labelling which would, as a minimum, allow consumers to distinguish real chocolate, which only uses cocoa butter, from chocolate whose ingredients include other fats.

Political group: GUE-NGL