GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
We confirm our unreserved commitment to combating all forms of terrorism and voted for the amendments we tabled together with the other groups, because they could – by providing for appeal to the European Court of Justice – provide legal protection for the European citizens. The names of some of the citizens have already been included in the list annexed to the regulation, even though no evidence has been produced of their connection to terrorist movements or involvement in terrorist activities. However, we voted against the regulation, both because of the procedure employed – this is the fourth time we have voted on terrorism with an urgent procedure, without a report and without a debate – and because of the content of the regulation, for we are voting on a list of names given to the UN by the CIA with no evidence and no possibility of our having access to any evidence there may be. The procedures for drawing up the list of natural and legal persons, groups and entities laid down in Article 2 of the regulation clearly violate the sacrosanct rules on the right of defence of EU citizens – also enshrined in the recently proclaimed Charter of Fundamental Rights – introducing a freeze on the financial assets and resources of those concerned without any possibility of democratic and/or judicial monitoring of the evidence on the basis of which they are included on the list. I therefore call upon the Council to take into consideration the amendments adopted by Parliament, at least, and to make the necessary changes to the proposal for a regulation.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in the important debate on the nuclear package, my position, and that of my group, the Confederal Group of the , is clear. We do not, on this occasion, have to take sides in the confrontation between those in favour of, and those against, nuclear energy. We have to start from where we are in terms of the planet’s energy needs and in terms of how to respond to these needs. I would draw your attention to a few figures: at present, we use the equivalent of ten billion tons of oil, 90% of which is fossil fuel. Looking further into the twenty-first century, we observe that our needs are going to double by as early as 2050 or 2060, even if we are unwavering in our efforts to make energy savings. We do not, therefore, have the resources to do without nuclear energy. If we were to do so, we should both be short of energy and see more serious pollution of the planet. We must therefore do everything to improve the management of nuclear energy. That is why, regarding the management of radioactive waste and spent fuel, I congratulate Mr Vidal-Quadras for the quality of his work. In particular, he proposes an essential change. Each Member State should, between now and 31 December 2006, set its own deadline for preparing and presenting a waste management programme. That seems to me to be more realistic than the Commission’s proposal. The report also poses the problem of the nature of the waste in question. Does it amount to freely circulating merchandise? For us, the waste is not ordinary merchandise, and we agree to specifying that, although a Member State’s programme may provide for the transfer of nuclear waste to another Member State, no Member State is obliged to accept such imports. When, finally, it comes to the safety of nuclear installations while they are being operated or decommissioned, I also wish to congratulate my colleague, Mr Seppänen, who has been very skilful in carrying out his work as rapporteur. The Commission’s proposal was not really satisfactory, and Mr Seppänen was not content to ask the Commission to try to come up with something better. Instead, he listed the shortcomings and put forward constructive criticisms, which my group and I support. Yes, our European Parliament and our Commission may genuinely be said to have worked well, overall, on this nuclear package. IN THE CHAIR: MR. ONESTAVice-President

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the historic opportunity which the coming Intergovernmental Conference is offering us to prepare the institutions and the operation of the European Union in readiness for the 21st century has already been made abundantly clear here. As such, the European Parliament needs to be able to take part in the preparations from close by and has to get involved in the drafting and approval of amendments to the Treaties in order to reinforce the democratic character of this procedure. We should also consider a possible simplification of the Treaties. At the Cologne European Council, it was stated that “during the Conference, other necessary amendments to the Treaties arising as regards the European institutions and in implementing the Treaty of Amsterdam, could also be discussed”. So this also includes the Court of Justice. In my opinion, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs, I emphasise that the organisational and procedural framework of the Court of Justice and the Court of First Instance is due for an overhaul in order to digest the current backlog. This should, in my opinion, go beyond the redistribution of chambers and increasing the number of judges. After all, the sound and timely administration of law forms a key component in each and every constitutional state and we need to ensure that within the European Union, the essence of the prejudicial procedure and general legal protection continue to be guaranteed. Other proposals which have been tabled, such as the question as to whether the European Parliament should be involved in the appointment of judges and whether the authority of the Court of Justice should extend to the third pillar, are under examination. So far, all Treaty amendments have increased the power for Parliament. This should also be the case now. The Committee on Legal Affairs proposes extending the codecision procedure to all areas of the internal market, with the Council still deciding by qualified majority. In these areas, it could even be considered whether Parliament and the Council could acquire the right of initiative with regard to amending existing legalisation. The introduction of a clear hierarchy of legal standards should, after all, ensure that a clear distinction can be drawn between all the various legislative and implementing decisions. Mr President, these were some of the first proposals tabled by the Committee on Legal Affairs in its opinion. The remainder will follow in a more detailed report next year.

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, when Commissioner Verheugen reported to the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs on the subject of eastward enlargement, I put two questions to him. The first was whether the Commission regarded a common framework for border control as necessary; and the second was whether the Commission believed that the candidate countries would be in a position to secure their borders with countries outside the EU to the same high standard of protection as the existing Member States already did. The Commissioner's reply was that the candidate countries would have no problem with guaranteeing a satisfactory level of protection on their own, and that there was no need for a European approach. The Commission has now changed its mind and presented a sensible proposal for a common framework for control of our external borders. Mr Pirker's report supports it and adds to it at various points, and Mr Coelho is unfortunately no longer here to hear me say that it goes without saying that I wholeheartedly support it too. It is to be regretted that Commissioner Verheugen has wasted a lot of valuable time by talking rubbish. One example of why this is a matter of urgency is the border between Germany and Poland, 456 kilometres long and formed by a river, where traffic across it is at present monitored by some 10 000 border guards. Poland's border with its non-EU neighbours is over 1 200 kilometres long and runs across fields for the whole of its length. The belief that, within the next few years, Poland will be able to secure this border on its own in anything like the same way as external borders used to be secured, is utterly illusory. This is where European solidarity is needed, as the defence of the external borders by a number of Member States is to the ultimate benefit of all Member States. Denmark, Sweden, Belgium, and the Netherlands reap the benefits of a high level of external border control. Any European concept of external border control must, at the end of the day, be enshrined in the Treaties, both by the allocation of combined powers to the EU and, on the other hand, by giving it institutional form as a European body in parallel with Europol and Eurojust. And, in these present times, as Cato did in the senate of ancient Rome, I will end all my speeches with the same words: Commissioner Vitorino, I wish that the Convention would demonstrate greater courage in this area.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen. I rejected the Evans report because I am not in favour of renationalising competition policy in Europe. If the Commission gives up its monopoly on exemptions in the future, this will not reform competition law, it will merely change the system. If the Commission then confines itself to supervising abuses within the context of this changed system, then that is something which, to my mind, is highly questionable. If national courts in the European Union are allowed to return judgments under competition law in the future, we shall no longer, I think, be able to talk of a uniform competition policy in Europe, especially now that the European Union is preparing for enlargement. What we need is a European Monopolies and Mergers Commission and I think that is what we should be working towards.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, the nightmare in the Middle East never ends. While we stand here and debate, there is an orgy of violence and killing. As you hear, Mr Solana and Mr Patten, we all feel incredibly powerless, disgusted and frustrated. The suicide attacks are preventing Israelis from being able to move about freely. Having a cup of coffee with a friend or shopping for food involves mortal danger. The fear of new attacks has a paralysing effect, of course. The European Parliament has condemned the terrorist attacks on countless occasions and urged Arafat and the Palestinian Authority to do everything in their power to stop them and to counter the hatred now also being spread to the Israelis. Violence also prevails for the Palestinians on the West Bank and in Ramallah, with hundreds of Palestinians dead, among them many children. Those of us who are friends of Israel, those of us who defend the Israeli state and its right to exist must react vigorously when the military and the government act as they do. The escalated violence and brutality of the occupation is quite disproportionate. A whole world is now united in demanding that Israel withdraw from the Palestinian areas. Its action is indefensible, and the attacks against Palestinian civilians will lead to more, not fewer, suicide bombers. The violent offensive and the killing can never lead to peace. If Israel is at war, as Sharon has stated, there are certain international conventions and laws which apply. Now, reports are flooding in that these are being violated. We do not know this with any certainty because no organisations or media are permitted in the area. Our fellow MEPs tell us that ambulances are not allowed to get through, either. The hatred between Sharon and Arafat is bitter and long-standing. It seems as if the parties can no longer escape from the situation. Comprehensive international commitment and a clear list of demands are therefore needed. It is good that the United States has stepped up its commitment and finally sent Colin Powell to the region. The EU too must do more, however. At the meeting on Monday, the ministers must ask themselves what we can do. An immediate weapons embargo? Yes. Obviously, the Association Agreement must be discussed. I do not believe that, in the present situation, this would be the right moment to suspend it, but the matter must be discussed. It must be possible for Palestinians and Israelis to live in peace, side by side. There would be no more important contribution to world peace and the international fight against terrorism than if this conflict were to be resolved.

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, the basic philosophy behind the Treaty of Nice is how to strengthen the unifying policy of integration and do more for European monopolies. This endeavour is still encountering problems, including among the very people who inspired it, as to who will have the upper hand in Europe following enlargement. The pitiful bartering on qualified majority voting which took place in Nice, and which almost blew the Summit apart, confirms this and anyone who talks of a European family is guilty of hypocrisy. The report under discussion today applauds the anti-democratic and reactionary provisions of the Treaty of Nice and lobbies for even more anti-democratic arrangements, such as the abolition of the veto and various other issues, the integration of foreign policy and defence and security policy, the inclusion of fundamental anti-grass roots rights in the Treaty and the facility to circumvent national parliaments by creating a special convention to table a proposal for a constitution. This is an unacceptable proposal; the people of Europe are already fighting against the thrust of it and will continue to do so.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Apart from its seeking to make an impact by setting out good intentions regarding stability, the rule of law and the fight against corruption, the Oostlander report is in fact nothing more than a vote of confidence in Mr Putin. This document says little or nothing about the disastrous implications of returning to the law of the market: poverty on a massive scale for the majority of the population, whose standard of living has been reduced by two thirds since before 1991. If it is right to denounce the Stalinist dictatorship of the past, how is it possible to have the slightest confidence in Mr Putin, the executioner of the Chechen people, the godfather of the various mafias and the man who endeavours to eliminate all opposition in civil society (unions, political parties) in order to strengthen his personal power? In this area, note should be taken of the rapporteur’s concern to help churches and religious organisations. However, there is absolute silence about the unions, now threatened by the reform of labour legislation and, in certain cases, by outright police repression. For these reasons, I have voted against this report. - Baltas report (A5-0364/2000)

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, of course, the Catalan Members here today, such as yourself, Mr Gasòliba and I, are particularly affected by this tragedy. Aside from the rightful decision by the President to send her condolences to the families of the victims, perhaps, Mr President, it would be helpful if that communication from the President urged all the authorities responsible for transport in the European Union once again to step up the application of legislation and the monitoring of safety conditions for the transport of both school children and pensioners, who have frequently been victims of such tragedies.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in the pharmaceutical area, the Internet has meant that we have recently experienced a completely new development, in that medicinal products are being traded on the Internet throughout Europe. Nonetheless, we still have territorial restrictions applying to pharmacies. How do you envisage this area developing in the future?

Political group: PPE-DE
Madam President, I have just been talking to the group Chairman in the front row. I have not yet had a chance to talk to the others further up, but we are entirely in favour of your making a statement expressing what I believe is the unanimous feeling of this Parliament towards the Serb people. That is the most direct method and we hope the message can reach those people in their heroic struggle for democracy. (Applause)

Political group: PSE
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I can endorse what the previous speaker has said. I believe we are being dishonest if we are only holding a debate here for the sake of debating, if more measurements are to be taken just to delay the project. What we need – and this has emerged with unmistakable clarity – are binding values. Anything else is contrary to the precautionary principle that we have propagated time and again in all other cases and is contrary to our repeated pledges to protect human health. Mr Kronberger reiterated emphatically that these substances are genotoxic carcinogens, that we have irrefutable evidence of their carcinogenic effects, that they affect kidney functions, the central nervous system, respiratory organs and the immune system. What we actually need here is time to negotiate, but not to delay or shelve the matter or, as many in this House, unfortunately, would seek to do, leave it lying in the drawer. What is wanted – and this message will be heard from politicians in the forthcoming election campaign too – is a set of clear and binding targets for local and regional authorities, targets designed solely to improve the quality of people’s lives.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, what stands out in the Commission document is, on the one hand, the acknowledgement that the backdrop to the Lisbon strategy was an economic growth rate of 3%, which did not reoccur in 2000 or in 2001 as a result of the economic slowdown that took place and, on the other, the document focuses on two fundamental objectives also mentioned in the Bullmann report: fulfilling the objectives of the Stability Pact, specifically the ‘zero deficit’ strategy, by 2004, and the speeding up of those processes that are lagging behind. Consequently, although it acknowledges that we are still seeing worrying levels of poverty and of inequalities in income, the proposals it makes are designed to exert greater pressure for the liberalisation of public markets, the creation of a single market for risk capital by 2003 and of financial services by 2005, the opening up of the electricity market by 2003 and of the gas market by 2004, pushing ahead with a second package of liberalisation in the rail sector and the commitment to reforming the labour markets. Although the document puts forward some positive measures in the social sphere, with the halving of poverty levels by 2010 and the adoption of social inclusion indicators, the fact is that speeding up privatisations, the attempt to make the labour market more flexible and the insistence on applying the rigid criteria of the Stability Pact whilst failing to take account of the diversities of the Member States and the serious social problems that some of them face, will lead to greater poverty and unemployment. The trust that employers as a class are placing in this Barcelona Summit is telling. Hence our firm opposition to this Commission document. The Bullmann report, which was initially reasonably balanced, was then ruined by moving too close towards the positions put forward by the Commission, another reason why we should oppose it.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, we shall vote for this document, which is aimed at implementation, that is a degree of control, of social legislation relating to road transport, provided however that amendments do not completely change the nature of its content. After all, we are in favour of implementation of the few rare measures of social legislation decided on by Parliament. Inadequate social legislation is better than the completely discretionary power of the road haulage employers. The fact remains that the social legislation is inadequate, and scandalously so. It is content to fix the ceiling for driving time at 56 hours a week, with a maximum of 90 hours over two weeks. The fact that even a driving time of 56 hours is regarded as an improvement for a number of lorry drivers demonstrates the greed of employers in this sector, who not only exploit their employees disgracefully but who, moreover, expose everyone to risks. How can we be surprised at the frequency of road accidents after a week of more than 50 hours? This shows that I am of course opposed to all the amendments directly inspired by the employers’ lobby, which are aimed at watering down the controls ensuring compliance with this already intolerable working time. I am speaking on behalf of the road haulage unions, which are demanding that working time should be fixed at 45 hours at European Union level. I should add that, over and above this claim, which is in fact modest, it is unacceptable that the concern is not to reduce the working time and efforts of the men, but only to ensure profitability, that is basically to ensure the profits of the road haulage employers.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, Commissioner, I should like to begin by thanking the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development for its report, and also by thanking the rapporteur, Mr Jové Peres, for his excellent input. In my opinion, the Commission’s proposal to extend the current aid regime for a further two years is sound. However, I share the sector’s concern at the Commission’s intention to resort entirely to an operational geographical oil information system for future monitoring of this regime. We feel this could prove a good monitoring tool, but only a complementary one. We believe it would be more useful and fairer to put in place appropriate checks at the oil mills, not just a geographical information system. Hopefully, such checks would be more effective in preventing fraud. We do not agree with the Commission’s proposal where it introduces a new concept, that of economic operators. This concept is quite unclear. Any one of us could set up tomorrow as an economic agents’ organisation and withhold significant funds from those genuinely involved in oil production, namely producers’ or interbranch organisations recognised by the Member States themselves. In our judgement, the key element of the strategy to promote quality is a permanent ban on the marketing of blends of olive oil and other fats. This is essential to pursue fraudulent blending with seed oil. The ban must be central to management of the olive oil market, so as to avoid defrauding customers and to establish a clear policy on quality and food safety. We endorse the general feeling within the Committee on Agriculture concerning the new designations. They result from extensive consultation with the sector, as does the reduction of maximum permitted acidity for extra virgin oil. Ladies and gentlemen, no other crop is so closely linked with the people of the Mediterranean and with their culture. No other crop shaped the landscape over thousands of years, as this one has. We are convinced of the environmental value of olive groves in maintaining biodiversity and stemming the advance of desertification. Those of us who live in the area are especially aware of this. In drafting programmes aimed at improving the environmental impact of olive groves, consideration should therefore also be given to recycling material removed when pruning the groves. Both the olive wood and the leaves can be used commercially, thus taking full advantage of all the by-products of cultivation.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, on a point of order, although we are not joined by the Council representative tonight, could I ask whether the Commission or a representative of Parliament's secretariat are aware of press agency reports I have seen which state that the decision to extend the voluntary scheme for 12 months was actually made in the Council yesterday, circumventing the codecision procedure and making this debate and the vote tomorrow irrelevant?

Political group: PPE-DE