GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Mr President, this is the last explanation of vote of the year 2000 and I would like to take this opportunity to thank you and the other Presidents for your patience in listening to me throughout the year. The year 2000 did not start off on a good note for Carlo Fatuzzo: in the spring my wallet and credit cards were stolen in Barcelona, during the summer my new bicycle was stolen in Strasbourg and in the autumn my diary and address book were stolen in Brussels. However, today the Sbarbati report which helps the elderly has been adopted, and this has raised my spirits and brought a smile back to my face. I would like to close by saying to Mrs Flemming, sitting here next to me, that the fact that we are living longer does not mean – as you so rightly said, dear Mrs Flemming – that we get older. It means that we get younger! In fact, once upon a time, a 40-year old would have been considered to be old, and today they are young. You are a young woman, Mrs Flemming, and if I were not married I would ask you out! (Laughter and applause)

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, Commissioner, the European Union has a single currency but it does not have a common economic policy. It has a single currency but it does not have a genuine economic policy authority. It has a single currency but it does not have a genuine federal budget. Until yesterday, the Union had the Stability and Growth Pact: the wonderful substitute – yes, a substitute – for a non-existent economic policy, for a non-existent proper redistributive budget, for a non-existent economic policy authority, while even the single currency and the monetary area are far from perfect. As you know, President Prodi, the credibility of the euro is linked, amongst other things – above all, I would say – to the Stability and Growth Pact and to its capacity to force the Member States to produce responsible budgetary policies: budgetary policies, I would point out, which they themselves have proposed and which are accepted by all their citizens. Of course the Stability and Growth Pact is subject to constraints – that is clear and we are all aware of it – particularly at a time of recession such as that the Union is currently experiencing. Nevertheless, Mr Prodi, it is one thing to find an intelligent way round these constraints, but it is quite another to actually remove them, to change the rules half way through the game, leaving a free-for-all. What concerns me, President Prodi, are not the intelligent changes – which are always welcome – but the danger that budgetary policy will actually be renationalised. This, President Prodi, is the most serious matter, the most perilous danger of all, for we could end up endorsing the policies of the irresponsible countries and penalising countries which have implemented responsible policies, the countries which have placed their trust in us. Rewarding the grasshoppers and punishing the ants will not help the euro: it will do nothing to further European integration at this very sensitive point in its development. This is why the European People’s Party will, through its members taking part in the Convention, acting in accordance with the mandate they received at the recent Estoril Congress, propose that the Convention should constitutionalise the basic principles of the Stability and Growth Pact. I am sure you will agree with me. And please, beware of fair-weather friends who arrive by your side at the eleventh hour!

Political group: PPE-DE
Today, the European Parliament agreed upon a resolution that may bring to an end this year’s debate concerning MEPs’ salary, pension and travel conditions. With this agreement, the European Parliament has gone so far towards accommodating the Council that there is now finally the prospect of a Members’ Statute. I am very pleased about this outcome which means, for example, that MEPs will be obliged to account for their travel expenses. Parliament’s compliance is based on an agreement that all Members of the European Parliament should receive the same wages. The amount is a weighted average of the remuneration received by MEPs in the four largest countries. It corresponds to EUR 8 600, from which MEPs themselves will have to contribute to their pensions. In addition, it will be possible for the Member States to opt for their MEPs’ paying tax to the Member State. Finally, the pensionable age for Members of the European Parliament is to be raised from 60 to 63 years. This is a sensible compromise for which everyone has had to go right to the pain barrier. I think that the salary has been set too high, but this was the price of our having been able to bring about a compromise at all. Report: Kauppi (A5-0383/2003)

Political group: PSE
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to compliment both rapporteurs on their excellent work. I believe that these proposals provide a good basis for ensuring that the internal market in medical products operates properly for medicines for both human and veterinary use. As far as I am concerned the hallmark of an internal market is not price stability, but comparable prices, which is something altogether different and really has nothing to do with the internal market. These proposals will also give a continuing boost to research, making research worthwhile again and also enabling manufacturers of generic drugs to make a living. I also believe that these proposals will make it possible to take advantage of all the options for maintaining public health. Harmonising data exclusivity in the European Union will particularly promote research, and at the same time make the task of generic drug manufacturers easier. I fully support this and those affected should not need to make any further demands. However, as I see it, extending the centralised authorisation procedure for medicinal products, as advocated by the Commission in committee, is not in accordance with the principles that have been mentioned. The present twofold authorisation procedure fully meets the requirements of the internal market and guarantees a greater variety of medicinal products, and with lower charges. The new plan to impose use of the centralised procedure for products with new active substances will undermine competition between the authorisation procedures. We can include as many processing deadlines as we like in the regulation, but without any competition these figures are meaningless. I know a great many SMEs that carry out research and in particular companies that are doing research and development in the field of ‘orphan drugs’ or veterinary medicines. That is where active substances of this kind are developed. Authorisation for these would have to be applied for in London, and I believe that these companies cannot afford that, nor can they put it into practice. So what we will end up achieving is to halt this kind of research, which really is not acceptable. We should therefore refuse to support the change proposed here.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, first of all, I would like to congratulate our committee chairman, Mr Daul, on what he has presented to us. However, this is not just Mr Daul's resolution, it has the support of the entire Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, and I hope that tomorrow it will have the support of the entire European Parliament. Your personal achievement has been to bring together the various different tendencies in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and to document the European Parliament's desire to have a voice in the reform process. I would ask you, President-in-Office, to convey this to the Council, please. The European Parliament wants codecision here. It wants codecision as regards debates about content and form, and it wants codecision as regards financial resources. We do not want to end up with the sort of strange decisions made at intergovernmental conference level, with us being informed how much money is to be devoted to the agricultural policy, without anyone ever seeking to establish a link between the substantive reforms needed and their financial impact. We want codecision for both agricultural policy and finance. You were wise enough not to cap pillar two, because we would not have found that acceptable, but we need to achieve a situation in which the European Parliament also has sovereignty over finances in pillar one, and can also decide what the basic features of the agricultural policy are. I am pleased that we have support within the Commission and that in Commissioner Fischler we have someone who will advance the reforms in the direction this House has in mind.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, I should also like to warmly congratulate the rapporteur for a job well done and for his efforts to obtain consensus, which were not altogether successful in my case, as I continued to insist that we deal with a lower surface area than it was possible to agree on. So I have tabled amendments to that effect. I would like to know whether Mrs Zrihen will support them in light of the comments just made by the Socialist Group. We live in hope, and perhaps a review is the best way forward, as Mrs McNally indicated. Many provisions of this directive have already been envisioned in the SAVE directive in 1993. We should now proceed to give it teeth. As I said, I would have liked to have seen stronger teeth here, but we need legally binding measures – which I believe we have – which will begin a process of really ensuring that we deal strongly with energy saving in the European Union. In practice, the obligation to review is one of the most important requirements in the report, and for that I thank the Members.

Political group: Verts-ALE
I abstained from the vote on the compromise resolution concerning the results of the Brussels Summit. First of all, I do not believe we should congratulate ourselves on Mr Giscard d’Estaing’s progress report on the Convention. So far, the Convention is off to a poor start, focusing as it does on the renationalisation of certain policies and a more intergovernmental approach, thus weakening the Commission and the European Parliament. Furthermore, the European Council has not regulated the future funding of enlargement in any way. In fact, the problems remain. In 2006, at the latest, the European Union will face an agonising debate over the solidarity required with the candidate countries.

Political group: PSE
I have abstained in the vote on public access to the documents of the European Parliament, Council and Commission. The compromise drawn up under the Swedish Presidency means that the EU will, for the first time, have a principle of public access to official records; that accessibility of documents rather than secrecy will now be the general rule. From a Swedish perspective, I fear that the agreement reached between the EU’s three institutions will lead to a weakening of our principle of public access to official records and legislation dating back to the sixteenth century. This applies especially to Article 5 concerning the requirement of consultation with the EU authority concerned if a Swedish authority considers it unclear whether or not secrecy rules are applicable. In such a situation, I fear that Swedish authorities will practise self-censorship and will not wish to go against the instructions given by the EU authority, because they do not want to come into conflict with the European level. If so, the EU legislation on the principle of public access to official records would lead to a deterioration of the access to public documents in my home country of Sweden.

Political group: PPE-DE
Access to education and to lifelong learning, and all the measures taken to promote the mobility of young people and workers will make a fundamental contribution to the stimulation of employment in Europe. A strategy to promote employment must first of all include efforts to promote the mobility of students and the continued training of workers, not to mention efforts to facilitate the creation of enterprises outside national borders. Education should be centred around the learning of a second Community language and new technologies. Experience and qualifications should receive equivalent recognition throughout Europe, and social security and pension systems should be able to be transferred from one country to another without prejudice to the mobile student or worker. Finally, the measures on financial assistance to SMEs should be reviewed by the Commission with a view to presenting new proposals, which are more flexible and effective than the existing ones, in order to encourage the SMEs to establish work relations beyond national borders and in particular to contribute to the implementation of cooperative relations and promote the spirit of enterprise within the new Member States.

Political group: PPE-DE
Madam President, I am delighted and proud that this Parliament has, by an enormous majority, condemned the formation of the coalition in Austria incorporating Mr Haider’s Freedom Party. Mr Haider has demonstrated, over the past years by both words and deeds, that he deserves to be excluded from normal democratic discourse. Not only has he admired Adolf Hitler, praised the Waffen SS, and refused to condemn a terrorist bombing that killed four Roma, but also in Carinthia has been a member of the regional government. He has led efforts to end provision for Austria’s Slovene-speaking minority and assistance to immigrants. Some have said it is not right for us to interfere in Austrian politics. They are wrong. European Union Treaties make it incumbent on us to protect fundamental rights. Some have said we have to accept the results of democratic elections. However, democratic elections do not make democrats of those who have threatened democracy. There is the tragic monument of the Holocaust, the death of 6 million Jews, to those who argued the same case with respect to Germany in the 1930s. However, we should not condemn Mr Haider for ambition. Leopards do not change their spots. The real culprits are Austria’s Christian Democrat acting as Judas goats to resurrect a threat to Europe that we thought had died Berlin in 1945.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I wish first to congratulate Mrs Hermange and thank her for this fine report, which is every bit as good as its predecessor. We share her analysis and also the criticisms she has raised in the report. I wish also to thank you, Commissioner, for your ideas on the Barcelona Summit. Only this morning, I was telling a party of visitors from Bad Hersfeld how much commitment you demonstrate. Your agenda has enjoyed very strong support from Parliament, and especially from the group to which I belong, but we now expect definite proposals and initiatives, action plans and also – Mrs Smet – directives. This will not work in the complete absence of directives. Of course, we should make more use than hitherto of the new method of coordination, especially in discussions with the candidate countries. I see that as an excellent instrument for getting these countries involved right now and also giving them the opportunity to set out to us their current concerns and needs, and what they have achieved. Here too, I do not share Mrs Smet's opinion that these candidate countries lag behind on all these points. I think we urgently need a reform of the European Works Councils directive. If you have problems at the Commission, Commissioner Diamantopoulou, then just take the excellent report that Parliament produced last autumn. We must also shape social policy along precautionary lines, and not always leave it until, so to speak, the child has fallen down the well. The scandal surrounding lorry drivers in Luxembourg is only the tip of the iceberg. The head of Luxembourg's government has said that there is an urgent need for action on the part of the European Union, and perhaps we should take him at his word. The Spanish presidency is, unfortunately, rather hesitant, but, Commissioner, Parliament supports you with all the commitment it can muster.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, I have no intention of saying anything about Nice, now that no one is listening anyway. The President of the Group complained bitterly earlier on that no one was listening to him. I intend to focus on the Commission's plans for foreign and security policy. There are two sides to this policy, the geographical aspect and the content. I agree for the most part with the Commission's list of countries, except on one point: there is no mention of the Middle East. We were the biggest provider of aid and support to Palestine and the region as a whole in the past and will hopefully continue to be so in the future. I am not satisfied with funding a process while others decide on its political content. We need a different role, a stronger role in the Middle East negotiations. We expect this to be understood not just as the job of the Council and the High Representative of the CFSP; we also expect an important, creative initiative on the part of the Commission. As far as the content is concerned, we need the Commission's presence to be felt in the common European security and defence policy. Our Parliament welcomed the development in this area in Mrs Lalumière's report but – and here I should like to pick up on Mr Nassauer's Marxist digression – a spirit is abroad in Europe, especially in this area: the spirit of intergovernmentalism. Parliament wants a common, not an intergovernmental European security and defence policy. The Commission is duty bound, Mr President, to reinforce the Community dimension of this policy. You want to do it by making a contribution to crisis management and conflict prevention and I think that is a good thing. (Applause)

Political group: PSE
Mr President, I too should like to congratulate both rapporteurs on the result achieved and also on the speeches they gave here this afternoon. However, I have to admit that I still feel slightly resentful about the Council’s result. I am pleased with the final, positive result, but on the other hand, why did the Council present such an unacceptable initial proposal? It truly seemed as if the members of the Council were, once again, behaving like little boys running riot with cap pistols, as I expressed it a number of years ago. Fortunately, everything got straightened out, for we would have had major problems with the whole of the budget on account of heading 3. I really fail to understand how the Council dares present proposals of this kind. In my opinion, we have made a rather considerable concession with regard to payments. I believe that we should monitor this more closely in future. The Council seems to have taken an interest in this, and it may be wise to be a little less generous next time than we were this year. But that is a matter for next year. I should like to highlight that, in future, we will be extremely short of cash in Headings 3, 4 and 5. We subscribe to what the Commissioner referred to, namely how relatively little the Union is currently spending. We must, of course, also bear in mind that as soon as new Member States join, the outlook will change immediately. We are therefore putting some savings away for the future. Another point which causes great concern, in my view, is the Council’s attitude towards projects which could improve employment. The issue surrounding Galileo springs to mind, which has caused great difficulty. All other points which cost money from the EU budget and which can contribute to better economic performances in the coming year – and there are quite a few of those – have been systematically discouraged, and if we do not sufficiently appreciate this, we will really end up in a recession. If we see what the Americans are currently doing, how much money they are prepared to pour into their recession, we do not have to copy all of this, but we can move slightly in that direction and manage our funds wisely.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should at any rate like to thank everyone, including the team behind the Commissioner, for example, for the quality and volume of work they have all done. However, I regularly suffer nightmares. When I wake up, I just hope and pray that another oil tanker has not run aground. I hope that will not be the case in the next three years either, for – everyone has already said it – it has been long enough, it is actually taking too long before we can lay down legislation, and we are only halfway. Speeding up processes of this kind can do no harm at all. A disaster such as the one involving the Erika is simply a real disaster, not only environmentally, but also economically and socially, and it can be entirely traced back to 80 000 ships, some ten percent of which, 8 000 ships, are absolutely sub-standard. This is to a certain extent where the problem lies, or in large part at any rate. Despite the fact that classification bureaux were involved and despite what has happened with, and is suggested about, double hulls, I should briefly like to focus on the port state control, for in the final analysis, what matters is that inspections should become effective. Mr Piecyk, but also others, have already drawn attention to this. Actually, we want 25% of inspections by way of a yardstick. But what mainly matters is that these inspections are carried out by well-trained people, and that they are carried out in the first place. We should, for example, call the French Transport Minister to account for the fact that his country scores exceptionally low in the percentage of inspections that are carried out. Although we now have a perfect and itemised list, enforcement still appears to be a problem. This is often the case when we draft legislation, but particularly so now. I therefore intend to monitor annual surveys of the Paris memorandum of understanding and other matters in the next few months with the help of others, and check whether inspection of this kind is, in fact, on the increase. I would also ask the Commissioner to ensure that we receive an annual overview, so that we can be active and pro-active to ensure that what we want to achieve actually happens. Secondly, I would mainly call for a prompt completion of the Erika II, and for accelerating the process in the light of the tiresome pace on the part of industry with regard to separate funding and such like. I would like to finish off with one point. Malta and Cyprus have been mentioned in connection with enlargement. There are still two that, let us say, are on the waiting list, including Romania. Romania is another country with an exceptionally bad track record on this black list, and I would call for extra attention to be paid to it.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Madam President, I simply want to say that I would like it to be recorded in the Minutes that, for obvious reasons, I am going to abstain from this vote, since it affects me directly. Furthermore, not only am I not going to vote, but I am actually going to leave the Chamber.

Political group: PPE-DE
Madam President, for reasons of a topical nature, I am in a position to give this issue my wholehearted support. The day before yesterday, I had the opportunity to speak to Turkey’s Minister of Justice, and I made him aware of the urgent nature of the situation. I would therefore ask you to take action accordingly.

Political group: PSE