GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Since you, Commissioner, will evidently be using the European Group on Ethics as an instrument for conducting the framework programme on research, can you let us know to what extent you will inform Parliament about the advice given to you by that group, about the composition of the group and indeed the discussions that you have with the group and with its Chair – when that person arrives?

Political group: PSE
Mr President, the directive that is now before us, concerning general product safety, offers the consumer excellent protection against unsafe products. Moreover, it is particularly suited to achieving the internal market, free movement and the harmonisation which is required for this in an effective manner. I greatly appreciate the fact that the Council has adopted a large number of the amendments accepted by Parliament at first reading. The directive in its current version provides for greater transparency, more active monitoring of the markets, a better definition of producer and consumer responsibilities – for that was still a stumbling block at first reading – stricter criteria for product safety and stricter criteria for testing these products. It allows for better and more effective intervention when products need to be withdrawn from the market. New, too, is rapid exchange, which I very much welcome in Europe. I would now like to turn my attention to a specific problem. It was raised in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, and concerns the export ban, enshrined in Article 13. This entails an automatic export ban on products from the Community once the Commission has been requested to examine the safety of these. We do not support this. Indeed, the proposal that a request for a safety check alone should lead to an absolute and automatic ban is hardly justifiable. Needless to say, the European Union is in favour of a high level of protection and very strict safety requirements, but a distinction must be drawn between a safe and a hazardous product. My colleague, Mrs Marialiese Flemming, whom I represent here, has tabled an amendment in this connection, and she suggests only allowing the automatic export ban to apply if the product for which a ban is being issued here should also be banned on account of safety. This point is of crucial importance to the group, and I hope that our fellow MEPs will support us by adopting the amendment tabled by Mrs Flemming on our behalf.

Political group: PPE-DE
I am very pleased to welcome the report by Gilles Savary on the interoperability of the rail system, since it approves the common position of the Council without amendments. This common position incorporates 33 of the 46 amendments put forward at first reading. Like the rapporteur, I think the future of the European transport system necessarily involves revitalising the rail sector. As we have often had cause to point out, within the European Union, investments in railways are differentiated to a great extent on a national basis. It goes without saying that these national disparities represent a considerable obstacle to the development of rail transport in Europe, despite the many advantages offered by this less polluting form of transport. At the same time, the establishment of the internal market has brought about a considerable increase in the movement of goods and persons around the European Union. This increase has mainly benefited the road sector, particular as regards freight movement. There are many reasons for the decline in the railways. One reason is that rail has been organised on individual national lines. There is no single market for railway services within the Community. Moreover, the networks are not always terribly well suited to new patterns in the organisation of economic activities and urbanisation, or indeed to the changes that these have entailed in traffic flows. Having said that, it is clear that the future of the European transport system necessarily involves revitalising the rail sector and in short order. I am speaking in favour of this because I believe that rail has a key role to play in solving the mobility problems facing the European Union. On a daily basis, the citizens of Europe suffer from pollution, congestion and the risk of accidents as a result of an excessive dependence on roads, a dependence that has only been exacerbated in the course of the last thirty years. The objective of sustainable mobility is thus closely linked to revitalising the railways. I am pleased, moreover, that the European Parliament has succeeded in getting through some amendments, which seek to have important social standards taken into greater consideration, such as vocational qualifications and conditions of health and safety at work. The Council also took note of a number of sensitive areas, such as, for instance, the protection of the existing railway system, the need to adopt a system of exemptions or specific cases, such as the situation of some countries that are isolated from the rest of the Community, or the difference in track gauges. Similarly, the Council has put forward a realistic common position that draws up a gradual schedule for work and takes account of the problems which enlargement will present for the rail sector. For all these reasons I voted in favour of the Savary report.

Political group: PSE
I thank the President-in-Office for his presentation of the intentions of the Member States, even though we already know what they are. I asked for plans and dates. When shall we have this sort of policy? My question did, of course, include a number of issues which appear to be of no concern to the Council, such as aid for refugees and efforts to integrate them. Be that as it may, my question is as follows: Mr President-in-Office, on 15 April, the Council decided on a number of measures which will apply to countries which do not cooperate with the European Union and which in fact facilitate, even if they do not exactly channel waves of illegal immigrants towards the Member States; however, it opted not to list these countries, while at the same time stating that it would be taking measures against these countries, which are clearly not doing their job and cooperating with the European Union. Surely this is a contradiction, Mr President-in-Office? Which countries are they? Why do you refuse to name them? And what measures do you intend to take to make them cooperate with the European Union?

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, if I have observed correctly, you have not yet taken a vote on Amendment No 75 tabled by the Group of the and the . This amendment needs to be voted on before all the other amendments, because the objective is to reject the Council's common position.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, the result of the conciliation that we have before us is a substantial improvement upon the rules for the release of GMOs into the environment. We are to obtain more stringent risk assessment requirements. The long-term effects of the many authorisations are also to be looked into. We are to have better monitoring, and we are to see time limits placed upon individual authorisations. I think that all this together will make an important contribution to the protection of the environment and the protection of public health. However, I have a couple of questions for the Commission about a number of matters I think it is important to have clarified today, for there are, of course, still a number of deficiencies in this area. Firstly, I would ask the Commission to give an assurance today that, whenever we devise vertical legislation in different areas concerned with GMO crops, we also make sure that this vertical legislation respects the general directive we are now adopting on releases into the environment. My second question concerns labelling and traceability, for I really find it worrying that the Commission has not by now been in a position to submit a proposal on labelling. On this matter too, however, I would ask that we be given a more detailed explanation of the letter sent by Commissioner Byrne and Commissioner Wallström to the members of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy and stating the desire to provide citizens with better information on GMOs. I do not think that the word “better” is enough. It is important for full information to be given and for there not, therefore, to be a system provided in which there are still a whole lot of gaps in the information given to consumers about GMOs. We are not interested in buying a pig in a poke. It is important that we obtain real consumer choice and that short measure is not given in this area. I therefore hope that we can obtain a statement on this issue today. I could also do with an assurance from the Commission that, as has been mentioned, the way to new authorisations will not be opened until the new rules have come into force in 2002. The desire to insert conditions corresponding to the new rules in any authorisations given before the law comes into force is, of course, very commendable. However, if the law has not come into force, then it will not, of course, be possible to enforce these rules if the authorised businesses contravene them. I am therefore definitely of the view that one ought to respect the fact that the legislation must come into force before a start is made on issuing authorisations under the new rules. That is the only way we can be sure that it will, in actual fact, also be possible to enforce the rules.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, I too would like to thank Mr De Rossa for this very important report. The illegal bushmeat trade is devastating endangered species and habitats in many developing countries. I welcome and endorse one recommendation in particular: to step up measures to detect and prevent illegal imports of bushmeat into Europe. Incredibly, smuggling illegal meat into Europe through ports and airports is still relatively easy despite the fact that this almost certainly caused the devastating foot-and-mouth epidemic in 2001, to which Mr Parish referred. The European Union must set an example here and send a clear message to smugglers that any bushmeat they bring to ports of entry will be detected and they will be prosecuted. Regrettably, this violent, profitable trade continues unabated and thousands of tonnes of illegal bushmeat, from West Africa in particular, is slipping undetected into Europe each year, with organised gangs going unpunished. It must be said that the United States is showing us the way here: anyone who has recently travelled through a US airport will undoubtedly have been confronted by a hardworking beagle sniffing every piece of luggage for imported foodstuffs. I implore the European Commission to get tough with Member States. Finally I also urge colleagues to reject irrelevant amendments to this report which seek to defend local European hunting practices and will inevitably weaken its recommendations.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, I believe that behind every legislative programme lies a political project. From this point of view, 2004 ought to be the year that will allow us to reconcile two absolutely essential objectives of our Union: peace and prosperity. In other words, we have no chance of successfully meeting any of the challenges that await us in 2004 unless we re-lay the foundations for prosperity on our continent. The third objective set for 2004 by the Commission, sustainable development, is therefore absolutely essential in the light of the Union’s current economic situation. In this context my group dares to hope that the Commission will make employment a clear priority, because neither enlargement nor a new constitution will be acceptable to our fellow citizens unless we first turn our attention to the issue of employment. To do so, we also need investment, both private and public, in human resources and we need a return to a level of growth that is sufficient to increase the quality of life of our fellow citizens. We must not rely solely on variations in interest rates or on the outside world to deliver growth areas for the Union. We might perhaps regret the fact, moreover, that the Commission has not, in its wide-ranging programme for 2004, addressed more explicitly the question of economic governance, above all given that the conditions in which the Commission is intending to prepare the spring summit, particularly as regards the implementation of the Lisbon strategy, do not yet appear to be quite clear. We need to know under what conditions the new Commission will have to implement the follow-up to this strategy and with this in mind, it might perhaps be useful for the outgoing Commission to draft an assessment of the first phase of the strategy. Lastly, it seems to me that the Commission’s programme ought to give a higher profile to the issue of sustainable development. I also note that despite a totally unrealistic number of new legislative proposals, some omissions can be observed. Firstly, there is not a word about the second reading of the directive on investment services, when it is a text on which we have done a great deal of work. I therefore dare to hope that we will be able to complete it before the end of this parliamentary term. The same goes for the review of the Financial Services Action Plan and the extension of the use of the Lamfalussy procedure. This Commission and this Parliament ought to conclude work on all of these dossiers in the course of 2004. Let me finish by saying how surprised I am, Mr President of the Commission, that your legislative programme, which is so heavy and so crowded, does not even mention a framework directive on services of general interest, something that my group and this House as a whole have repeatedly requested, and for which the Convention also expressed a strong desire.

Political group: PSE
We are not going to vote against people having access to public sector information. However, although they are in favour of transparency, the European institutions are in favour of public sector documents being used by commercial companies to make a private profit. That is not transparency, it is information to benefit some and misinformation for others. Transparency alone could, in this area, be useful for the whole population, and would force large companies to make their accounts available to all. Thus, when companies were preparing to make redundancies, workers and the populations of the regions concerned would be able to see that the profits of the companies in question or otherwise the personal wealth of their shareholders would enable the threatened jobs to be maintained and that as a result the redundancies were not justified.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Air pollution as a result of discharges of dangerous materials into the atmosphere is a cross-frontier environmental problem which has a drastic effect upon public health. It is therefore gratifying that the Commission has taken the initiative to prepare a draft directive concerning limit values for benzene and carbon monoxide. It is, however, tremendously important that the proposal also deals with the requirement to provide the public with information about air quality, published on the basis of a very careful monitoring of benzene and carbon monoxide levels. I also welcome the fact that, in its report, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has tightened up its demand for absolutely comprehensible and easily accessible data so that the public is kept informed at all times about air quality and any pollution problems stemming from dangerous emissions. - Sjöstedt report (A5-0044/1999)

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, let me begin with three statements: the war in Chechnya is not Mr Putin’s private affair; the war in Chechnya is not a war against terrorism; and the war in Chechnya still spawns daily acts of violence on a massive scale against the human rights of the civil population. We can only talk to President Putin about advancing the partnership between the European Union and Russia on the basis of these three premises. For this reason, we strongly support the criticism contained in the resolution on which Parliament will vote tomorrow directed at the current President-in-Office of the European Union, for the inadmissible statements made by Mr Berlusconi supporting Mr Putin’s policy in Chechnya. These statements – and I am addressing the under-secretary, Mr Antonione – were utterly unacceptable and totally devoid of any connection with the policy expressed by the European Union up to now. As Mr Poettering has reminded us, the European Union regards Chechnya as an open wound. Mr Berlusconi’s affinities and personal friendships cannot and must not jeopardise the rigor with which Europe must demand that President Putin put an immediate end to the abuses and violence in Chechnya and seek a political solution to that conflict. Mr President, 3000 deaths since the beginning of the year, 300 people missing, 50 mass graves discovered and elections known to be a farce: this is the balance of the war in Chechnya, and a story of long-standing impunity: the Italian Presidency really ought to call President Putin to account over this. We would have expected some words of regret from Mr Antonione about what has happened and some plain speaking about what will happen in future. We note, Mr President, that these words have not yet come.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, I am entitled to make both a personal statement and a statement concerning the Rules of Procedure. Mr van Hulten has invited me to respect democratic decisions. It was a democratic decision of this House that this report should be dealt with this afternoon. Therefore it is not I who have gone against a democratic decision. Secondly, you have taken Rule 145 as your basis, and I should like to draw your attention to Rule 145(2), which states quite clearly, ‘If the proposal or request is carried, only one member may speak from each political group which has not yet provided a speaker in that debate’. That means that, if Rule 145 had really been applied, an opportunity to speak would have had to be given to one Member from each group! I am therefore really asking that these things should be clarified.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, every day we see horrifying images of new tragedies which desolate the world: people devastated, children dying from hunger and disease, refugees without refuge, immigrants wandering the world looking for an opportunity to live... There are tragedies, however, which persist while nobody talks about them, which get worse and fester although they do not make the headlines. One of those cases filed away in our selective first-world memory is the situation in Central America and the dramatic effects of the drought which has been devastating it for more than three months. This is a tragedy which is unfolding in a region, as has been said, which is already weakened by constant natural disasters, quite apart from political disasters, and which has a social and economic structure lacking the least resources for resisting them. El Salvador has declared a state of emergency and Guatemala just yesterday declared a state of public disaster, in a truly desperate attempt to combat hunger. The drought has destroyed the majority of the crops in the region and hunger is now affecting millions of people, as previous speakers have said. All of this in an area where an extremely high percentage of inhabitants live in poverty or extreme poverty. The United Nations world food programme raised the alarm very recently, telling us that if the current situation continues, it will only be able to meet the needs of half of the affected citizens for barely three months. I therefore draw your attention in particular to the recommendation contained in section 4 which, in relation to that in section 3, seeks to direct our decisions in the field of development aid towards the objective of combating the structural problems. Only in that way, by investing in sustainable development in the most sensitive areas of the world, will we be able to prevent and alleviate as far as possible the effects of natural disasters, because we will have invested our aid and our resources in the structuring and strengthening of the population and we will have made them stronger so that they can endure the consequences of phenomena which not even we, in the first world, can prevent. Ladies and gentlemen, it is time for Europe to be able to give out fishing rods, to show people how to fish, rather than to hand out fish.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, Commissioner, permit me, first of all, to make reference to two facts. Firstly, at the beginning of 1999, NATO, with the participation of most Member States of the European Union, flattened Kosovo with bombs in the name of freedom. We are now endeavouring, at huge cost, to get the country back on its feet again and help its people, and rightly so. Secondly, at the end of 1999 unbelievable storms raged bringing death and destruction to vast tracts of the EU. The Commission in Brussels responded to the victims’ cries for help with a shrugging of shoulders. “We do not have the wherewithal for that,” they said. This is wrong! And no one can comprehend this attitude. Certainly those who fear for their livelihood are at a complete loss. The citizens of the European Union expect solidarity, also from within this Community. I say they have a right to solidarity. Indeed the European Parliament must make it its business to uphold this right in hours of need. I urge the Commission not to keep having to be asked and to provide assistance for the victims of the storms. It knows the ins and outs of aid provision better than any local organisation or authority. I call upon you, ladies and gentlemen, to support me in bringing home to the Commission the fact that what most Brussels offices are lacking is not so much the wherewithal for providing aid as the good will. Permit me one further comment. Although it was less evident in the case of the consequences of the storm, the tanker disaster off the French coast has made it very clear that we need to give the Commission a helping hand on another matter. The European Union needs rules governing environmental liability as a matter of urgency. We can no longer tolerate a situation where the general public has to foot the bill for damage that has often been caused by individuals involved in criminal machinations. We must make the perpetrators liable for all manner of damage done to our environment. Then, for example, people will think twice before transporting oil in a tanker that is about to fall apart. When, in 1994, over five years ago that is, I joined the Legal Affairs Committee in this Parliament, I became rapporteur for the environmental liability dossier. To this day I am still awaiting an initiative from the Commission, which will actually enable me to start work. It is a scandalous state of affairs that must be ended with all haste, and I hope that February does not see this dossier being postponed yet again!

Political group: PSE