GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Mr President, in relation to promoting gender equality in developing countries, it is clear that poverty is one of the issues that has to be tackled. Women and children are worst affected by poverty, but women are the ones at the coalface who can truly make the difference. It is quite incredible to hear the Commission here today begrudging a measly EUR 2 million. The Commissioner talks about the Council and the Commission – both male-dominated – deciding that they think that the EUR 2 million extra is not acceptable. They are hoping to browbeat this Parliament into accepting what two male-dominated institutions have decided. It is incredible when you consider that even EUR 11 million is absolute crumbs when you look at the overall budget, and yet you want this Parliament, even on first reading, to give up on that extra 2 million. It is completely unacceptable. I hope that Parliament tomorrow will vote an increase, as the committee did, from EUR 9 million to EUR 11 million. If you want to promote gender equality you have to be willing to go that extra distance to ensure that you are truly committed to it. If you say you begrudge EUR 2 million and that you cannot find EUR 2 million in the budget to increase this budget line, it is absolutely unacceptable; and I hope that Parliament will send a strong message to the Commission and to the Council that this is no longer acceptable. We talk about gender equality in the European Union, but we have to prove this by saying that we are willing to pay for promoting it in developing countries, to pay for supporting women in developing countries who in many cases have been persecuted and who are the ones who have been pushing to try and progress gender equality and also to alleviate poverty. The money there is well deserved and you cannot begrudge this EUR 2 million.

Political group: Verts-ALE
We voted in favour of this report because one cannot disagree with the condemnation of this despicable situation in which children are turned into slave soldiers. At the same time, however, the hypocrisy of a text originating from the political representatives of rich countries whose ruling classes are to such a great extent responsible for the wretched plight of these countries is something that disgusts us. For example, what is meant by statements about having a strategy to combat poverty, or by the promise – which we know to be a lie – to facilitate such children’s access to medical care, social services and schooling? Besides, while the European Parliament is expressing its indignation, those States which make up the Union are continuing to maintain relations with the leaders of those countries. To take only one recent example, the fact that the current President of Liberia uses child soldiers did not, four years ago, prevent the leaders of the French State from giving him an honourable welcome to their country. The rule of armed gangs has never interfered with the arms manufacturers selling their arms to the regime, or with the jewellery companies recovering contraband diamonds. While civilian populations are massacred and children are dehumanised by being turned into slave soldiers, the looting continues.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Madam President, I am amazed that an honourable Member should describe euthanasia as a matter for national criminal jurisdiction covered by subsidiarity. We are, of course, all very proud and gratified that the death penalty does not exist in a single Member State of the European Union, because the sanctity of human life is something that should unite us all. (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE
It is perfectly fine by me, Mr President, for me to be the first to keep exactly to his allotted time. Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, I do not think we should play the same narrow-minded game here at every sitting, raising again the supply of goods from the West Bank to the European Union. There is nothing wrong in discussing the matter, and last time we had a full debate about it. If those goods were supplied by the Palestinians, they would enjoy the same European Union preferences and it is therefore pointless to always encumber such a serious question as this conflict with such banalities. Secondly, everyone in this Parliament condemns the illegal executions that Israel is carrying out. They are incompatible with international law and there is no need at all to discuss the matter. It is good that we as a European Union are making that absolutely clear. Many Americans are also saying that it is wrong. That is why we should not always be setting France against the USA in the matter. Henry Kissinger, too, said that quite clearly at the weekend. What we must do, however, is something that demands rather more: we must now engage in dialogue with the Arab world. It is of course far from reassuring that the Arab summit has recently been cancelled, that it cannot take place because it has been impossible to agree on a declaration containing the words democracy, parliament and civil society and speaking of women’s rights and democratic reform. We must also be clearer in reminding our partners south of the Mediterranean of our fundamental convictions if we want to reach a comprehensive solution. Those who are normally always very vociferous about these things in this House should also be vociferous in addressing the Arab world about them. We do that with Israel. It is a democracy. We can expect a lot of it, and I believe we are right to do so. We should, however, develop a broader perspective on the Middle East. That also requires a dialogue with the Arab world about our fundamental principles. Otherwise, we will never find a solution.

Political group: PPE-DE
Madam President, I thank the Commissioner. His contribution was short and sweet but at this stage most of the talking has been done. I would like to thank my colleague in absentia, Mr Nisticò, for the enormous amount of work he has done on this particular directive. It has come back to us from conciliation quite satisfactorily. The final issue on which the debate rested was whether a doctor would be responsible for the assessment of the eligibility of donors, whereas the Council wanted a health professional and deemed that to be sufficient. The compromise is that both Parliament and the Council have agreed on a qualified health professional. In the spirit of conciliation that is quite satisfactory. Others might give it another name, but it gets us to where we want to be at this point. I thank all those who spent a lot of time and effort in getting to this position. The directive before us deals with the collection, testing, processing, storage and distribution of human blood. It is quite a contentious issue in many of our Member States, not least in our own. We have had a tribunal, known as the Lindsey tribunal, which was wound up recently, having sat for some time trying to resolve the very tragic cases of patients, many of whom have since died, who received infected blood. Other countries have had similar experiences. One of the most important aspects of this directive is that it will restore confidence in blood transfusion services generally and in the movement of blood and blood products throughout the European Union so we can all have confidence in other Member State systems in relation to it. This new directive, together with the existing Directive 89/381/EEC, will ensure that binding Community legislation will apply now to blood and blood products whatever the intended purpose. Apart from blood and blood products, it will also cover the whole area of patients donating their own blood prior to surgery in hospitals and cover regulation in that area specifically as well. There was quite a lot of contention at earlier readings on this directive as to whether all donations had to be voluntary or unremunerated. That should be the culture; that must be the ethos we foster. While we should never risk rare blood groups or rare blood products being unavailable to patients through our unwillingness to pay, that must be the exception. Payment can take many forms in terms of expenses or just compensating for lost hours at work, as distinct from profit in terms of payment. The views of the patient groups, which were very strong at first and second reading, were that we must not rule out remuneration, but it must not be the rule. We must continue with the voluntary ethos. I welcome the return of this report from conciliation and I hope it will not be too long before all our Member States transpose it and it becomes law.

Political group: PPE-DE
Madam President, I would first like to thank the Commission's very professional negotiating team, Commissioner Fischler and Commissioner Lamy, because they really did everything in their power to make the conference a success. Perhaps in future we ought to bring in a rule that says anyone who walks out of the negotiations has given their approval. We were expecting tough, rigorous negotiation, but we lost our partners along the way. In other words, the poor will remain poor and the rich will remain rich. That is not something for us to be happy about. Mrs Lucas said earlier that poorer countries should have the right to promote their own national industries. Does she mean by that monopolistic companies owned by a handful of ministers who are worried that competition rules and investment protection agreements will put their own assets at risk? It might be helpful here to involve national members of parliament, opposition members, somewhat more closely, so that there can be a genuine debate in the least developed countries as well about who is to be wealthy and who is to live in total poverty. A few wealthy individuals compared with millions living in hunger. We should therefore make every effort to encourage small- and medium-sized enterprises, family companies, in these countries, to stimulate competition, and to promote well-being – and I do not mean just for a handful of people who benefit from the existence of monopolies. That is why I believe that the Parliamentary Conference is so important, and we as Europeans should be in the vanguard here, to ensure that there is an objective and transparent debate not only here in Europe, but also and above all in the world's poorest countries. They urgently need a debate of that kind. There is one more issue I would like to focus on: what will happen when the ‘‘peace clause’’ expires? Will we be faced with another war, a world trade war in which the poor will become even poorer?

Political group: PPE-DE
We have voted against this joint resolution, which adopts a hypocritical and paternalistic attitude towards this country, whose disastrous situation and poverty are basically due to decades of exploitation and plundering, and of domination that was originally colonial and is still imperialist in nature. We have no sympathy with the mutinies by the Ivorian army, which was formed and to a certain extent moulded by French soldiers and which, since its inception, has had no other purpose for existing but to oppress the poor majority of the Ivorian population whilst submitting it to extortion and racketeering along the way. It must be said, however, that the government army is no better. Portraying Laurent Gbagbo as a democratically elected president is a con-trick when it is a matter of public knowledge that the elections were fixed and that one of the candidates was prevented from standing for reasons of ethnic prejudice. And this government, like its predecessors, has been deliberately creating a climate of xenophobia and ethnic prejudice, which is making life unbearable for millions of migrant workers and farmers from neighbouring countries and for those originating from the North. Asking this government and this army to ‘guarantee the safety of the civilian population’, is like asking the wolf to look after the sheep! (Explanation of vote abbreviated in accordance with Rule 137(1) of the Rules of Procedure)

Political group: GUE-NGL
Madam President, a number of colleagues have remarked that it is a very bad thing to have so many votes on these occasions, but I would like to congratulate you on having kept us going. I do not know for what purpose my constituents elected me if it was not to exercise discretion and choice in deciding what things to vote about. I do not think we do a more important thing than cast our votes for and against proposals in this House and objecting to that is a very foolish thing. Moreover, if one looks at the votes cast today, there were very few foregone conclusions: there were close votes on all the roll-call votes and that seems to me to show the need to test these matters by voting. The idea that we should have fewer votes seems absurd. That said, I should like to make a remark about the Watson report. Once we have got to the point of having Community law, if that law is defied it seems perfectly obvious that there have to be within our nation States – and nations which are not States – criminal rules which uphold it, otherwise the States pass laws which they are not able to enforce and the Community becomes a laughing stock. Of course, that requires a proper safeguard and proper defence rights. These days we are thinking about defending our civilisation. Our civilisation is to do with giving people proper rights of defence and I am sad at recent developments in the United Kingdom that seem to be ending these rights. *** EXPLANATIONS OF VOTE Fatuzzo . – (IT) Madam President, although I had requested the floor to speak about ten documents, I shall limit myself to the explanations of vote on the Figueiredo and Chichester reports. – Proposal for a recommendation by Mr Watson (B5-0707/2001)

Political group: Verts-ALE
Thank you, Mr President. Ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, this afternoon we have seen that our directives do have some effect on the people of Europe. We have, in particular, seen that the dock workers are angry, very angry, and also desperate. Why? Most likely because they are heard too infrequently in this Parliament. More likely, however, because they are coming up against a cold, liberal Europe that subordinates safety, safety at work and health, social matters and jobs to blind liberalisation dogma. They are also angry about the proposal you launched in February 2001, Commissioner, in which you pulled their social charter out from under their feet with one stroke of the pen. It will come as no surprise to you that you are not very popular in Belgium, and I still regret that you did not have the courage to have a direct debate with the dock workers in Antwerp, for example. That could have been enlightening. In Parliament we should have discarded the proposal immediately after the first reading, we should not have amended it. Various colleagues have already told me that it is not what we wanted. So why did we not vote it out? I will continue to fight against this directive, I will vote against it tomorrow and I will continue to do so. Because I still do not understand what its added value is, not even in its amended form, although I do admit that it is much improved. I will tell you why the dock workers are striking, Mr Jarzembowski. They are, of course, striking because if you permit self-handling in another country, you must also permit self-handling in your own country straight away because of the sacred competition rules, and that is the reason why I continue to oppose it. I hope that we will be able to vote the proposal out, but I fear that we will not be able to do so. I am therefore hoping for strong amendments: self-handling out and compulsory licensing in. I found out today that we are better at defending this Parliament with a police force than we are at maintaining the social system in Europe.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, and the new Commissioners, I offer you my congratulations and I believe that your candidature will be confirmed by our vote today. But it is not simply a matter of approval, for huge commitments and great challenges await you in your new posts. Much has been said here about money, about the Far East and the Near East, but I should like to direct my question towards a resolution of the Roma problem. The European Commission and the European Parliament have often reproached our country, the Slovak Republic, for not doing enough to resolve the Roma problem. I should like to ask you, perhaps you Mr Prodi, whether you would not consider perhaps supporting the establishment of an institute for resolving this problem, since this question has now become a matter for Europe and the resolution of the Roma problem is not just a question of financial resources. It is a question of an overall philosophy and a general approach and I believe far more will have to be done in this regard in the future.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, I want to extend a warm thanks to the rapporteur for his enormous achievement in which he also managed to incorporate the work of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, not by copying everything verbatim, but by including the essence of what we tried to say. I also want to thank the Commission for the extremely enjoyable way in which we were able to work together, so much so that our joint effort has culminated in a tangible result. That must give the Commission food for thought, to the effect that something must be done on this score fast. Some people believe that, when we talk about this directive, it concerns an abstract, econometric matter. That is not the case. It concerns an essential financial directive which has major social implications, and that is what this is all about. Millions of people are involved in one way or another in the way in which we want to give shape to our future pension system in Europe. In this connection, the Commission was right to use three pillars as a starting point. Here, we are regulating a major component of the second pillar. The first pillar is currently under discussion in the Council and will also be debated in this Parliament in due course. The third pillar has been regulated in the past. But that is an extremely important matter, and we must very much bear in mind the specific nature of this second pillar. The specific nature means that the social partners have an important role to play, that it remains a financial directive and that we should not mix the pillars up. The rapporteur has managed to achieve these objectives. I believe that we managed to do the same in the opinion we issued, but the rapporteur has adopted this in his report very skilfully. The only point that we wanted to take further than the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs – and I actually find it quite amusing as a member of the Employment and Social Affairs Committee – was further simplification of the directive. Mr President, I should like to thank everyone and hope that the Council will produce a Directive soon.

Political group: PPE-DE
Thank you, Mr Vitorino, because I understand that the Commission intends to submit proposals. I should like to say that, in the last decade of the century that has just finished, both the Vienna Conference and subsequently the Beijing Conference opened up new horizons so that we can bear in mind the very real situation in which women suffer in numerous countries, but I believe the Commissioner understands the question Mrs Izquierdo has raised and I am grateful that he is to make this kind of proposal.

Political group: PSE
We are about to discuss the subject of reforming the Commission and you will recall, Madam President, that at the beginning of the last session, I raised with you the question of whether, in the interests of openness and transparency, the Members’ register of interests could be made more available to the public by being published on the Internet. You promised Parliament you would raise this subject with the Quaestors that very evening. I wonder if you are now in a position to confirm to Parliament that the Quaestors have agreed in principle that the register should be published on the Internet and, if so, whether you will personally set them a deadline – perhaps 1 April – for doing so.

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, one thing that has not been mentioned during this debate is the fisheries protocol which has been attached to this agreement. The effect of this fisheries protocol is that EU-subsidised companies will now be allowed to invest in Chile with up to 100% ownership rights. It will allow them direct access to Chilean fish stocks. There are several aspects of concern for Chile's coastal communities: unfair competition with the local artisanal sector and the unknown impact on marine resources, for example. We have only to look at the Argentinean case. EU companies will be able to buy up Chilean fish quotas on fully exploited fish stocks; they will also have free access rights to Chile's under-exploited fisheries resources. The opportunities provided by this protocol for EU fisheries companies, combined with the process of privatisation in Chilean fisheries, threaten the sustainability of the artisanal fisheries sector. The protocol will be used to transfer part of the EU's overcapacity to Chilean waters. I am fed up with this irresponsible and exploitative approach to the problems of overcapacity of EU vessels. Is it any coincidence that this protocol was attached during the Spanish presidency and forced through? It seems to have been used as a bargaining chip, and it has taken no account of a sector that employs more than 60 000 fisherman and provides for some 400 000 jobs in the industry in that area. The artisanal fisheries contribute over 90% of fish consumed locally and provide 25% of export earnings for the fisheries market. So it is unacceptable that this aspect has not been properly assessed and taken into account.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, I have read up the case of Ms Amina Lawal and checked it out with Amnesty International, which I would like to thank for the assistance it gave, as also the staff of my own group who confirmed the facts that had been published. I looked into these facts and the first thing that strikes us about this case is the cruel and unusual punishment that is involved. Above all, we have to look at the unfairness of the decision that was taken in imposing a punishment on the female partner in the name of some kind of religious belief. This is not religious justice; this is a purely political policy by which men in many parts of the world, in the past and still today, maintain their control and domination over the weaker sex. The second hurtful aspect of this case is the absolute and wanton cruelty involved. It violates every instinct in mankind that prompts us to work for a world that can be shared in peace and enjoyment by us all. Above all, this case reminds us of the barbarous days when witches were burned, as somebody pointed out earlier, and when human beings were sacrificed to satisfy an unseen, unknown and uncaring deity. There are many people in this world who recognise many different visions and manifestations of their god or gods. There are many people who recognise no god whatsoever. This does not prevent us from sharing and enjoying the same world together. But if some people believe that on behalf of their god, they can take it upon themselves to punish and persecute their fellow men because they follow a different religion or do not have any religious beliefs, then mankind cannot co-exist in peace in this world. That is why we in this Parliament must make it clear that only democratic institutions have the right to make laws and impose humane punishment on other human beings and that the code of the United Nations will be upheld by the European Union at all costs.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, another ten emigrants drowned yesterday while trying to reach Italy. They wanted to work in Europe. In the last few weeks, hundreds of emigrants have suffered the same tragic fate off the coasts of southern Italy, Andalucia and the Canary Islands. I mention this state of affairs once again in an attempt to induce Parliament and the Union to take the necessary political steps to avoid these intolerable tragedies and prevent them from happening ever again. In any event, let us remember these innocent people.

Political group: Verts-ALE