GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Mr President, we are holding a debate on an issue which is of relatively modest importance in budgetary terms, ambitious in its objectives, relatively encouraging in its results, inefficient because of its cumbersome management procedures, at times contradictory and, in short, there is clearly room for improvement in the future. I must express my satisfaction at the frankness and transparency with which the committee has analysed the results that have been obtained. It does not hide anything and I congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Dell'Alba, because in a co-decision procedure he has rejected demagoguery and easy criticism in favour of the professionalism with which he has approached the drawing up of his report. I hope that, in a co-decision procedure, the Commission will be sensitive to Parliament’s position so that we can begin the now urgent reform of this important financial instrument. This instrument for the development of the private sector in developing countries is in accordance with the thinking which inspires the new position of the European Union in its cooperation policy. We have already talked a lot about this in relation to the ACP countries and we must apply the same criteria in relation to the countries of Latin America and the southern Mediterranean. The results obtained so far are encouraging. More than 1 300 new companies have been set up, generating 42 000 jobs, and investment flows to the tune of EUR 3 500 million have been created. Certain hopes and expectations, however, have been left behind. We find it contradictory to say that fighting poverty is our priority and, yet we lack the information and indicators necessary to ascertain to what extent the most impoverished sectors have benefited from the aid. Lastly, Commissioner, it is urgent that we reform the five current cumbersome procedures, none of which is of any real use, since they can clearly be improved.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, I would like to extend my genuine congratulations to Mr Bowis on his sound report on the White Paper for food safety. It is a very loaded topic which, after the European food crisis, has led to heated debates, and Mr Bowis managed very well to incorporate this debate in his report. In the Netherlands, the debate has focused on a European Food Safety Agency, which could be seen as Europe’s answer to the American FDA. In fact, that is how it was launched by the President of the Commission, Mr Prodi, when he took up office. The White Paper which is now before us and the Bowis report both take an agency as their only starting point, an agency attended by an extensive package of tasks in the form of accompanying legislative measures designed to restore confidence. Upon careful examination of the White Paper in the Member States and here in Parliament, it will then be given legislative status in the form of a new draft directive. The tasks will then involve independent scientific research, advice, independent inspections and a rapid alert system, but definitely coordination too, in order to restore confidence. I have concerns regarding those independent inspections. Why? In my view, there should be better guarantees for coordination with Dublin, and it should also be possible to carry out inspections in the Member States without prior permission. Amendments have been tabled to that effect. Legislation, standards and laying down rules remain within the remit of those institutions authorised for those purposes in Europe. Those are the Commission, as initiator, and the Council and Parliament as legislator. That does not take away the fact that I am left with one huge wish. I would have liked so very much to have drawn a comparison with the EMEA, and I also wanted to include notification and product approval as part of an agency’s remit. I hope that this will be given due consideration in the new proposal.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, although satisfied with the report, my group too feels that it must use the time available to stress that it is essential that the European Parliament continues to make use of all the resources available to it more resolutely to ensure that the issue of human rights is given greater prominence in our decision-making and that the policies we follow are more effective. I believe that, as far as human rights in general in the world are concerned – and I would single out in this broad category the rights of the child and women’s rights – there is still potential which has yet to be fully exploited in the decisions that we take regarding all the aid policies, not least in respect of developing countries, potential which we must exploit with greater determination and resolution to promote the need to respect human rights. I believe that there is a problem of information here, too, and I agree with the statement in the report regarding the need for Parliament in general and the committees handling the decisions relating to these countries’ policies, in particular, to have greater, quicker, more certain access to absolutely up-to-the-minute daily information on what is happening in those countries. To conclude, I, too, want to mention the death penalty, which is an ongoing concern for everyone and on which everyone must continue to develop a policy.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, I would just like to say this: I would suggest that the House adopt an oral amendment to this proposal for an amendment, Amendment No 5, introducing the single word ‘gradually’ after the word ‘eliminating’. The first part of the amendment would then read ‘eliminating gradually all export subsidies’. (The President established that there were no objections to the oral amendment) (Parliament adopted the joint resolution) *** Report (A5-0237/2003) by Hans Blokland, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the 2002 Annual Report of the European Central Bank (I5-0012/2003 – C5-0238/2003 – 2003/2102(INI)) (Parliament adopted the resolution) *** Report (A5-0169/2003) by Carles-Alfred Gasòliba i Böhm, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the international role of the euro zone and the first assessment of the introduction of banknotes and coins (COM(2002) 332 2002/2259(INI)) (Parliament adopted the resolution) *** President. That concludes the vote. EXPLANATIONS OF VOTE - Resolution on European Council in Thessaloniki (B5-0325/2003)

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the proposed European Constitution represents undeniable progress in the process of European construction and I fully agree with the assessment of my colleague from the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, Mr Andrew Duff, in this regard. However, we Catalan Members from Convergencia i Unió will abstain. The reason is that an aspect which is fundamental to us, and I believe also to many European citizens, has not been considered as fully as we had asked for. The peoples of Europe who are identifiable as stateless nations, or in regions with a strong personality and sense of identity, have not been associated in the manner we called for. It is true that the draft Constitution takes up certain principles which we believe to be valid, but it does not include the guarantees we called for in order to associate the regions with full legislative powers with the European institutions, nor does it guarantee that they have access to the Court of Justice, nor does it ensure the inclusion in its linguistic system of languages which are official in the Member States. That means that a language such as Catalan – which will be the eighth most widely-spoken in the enlarged Union – lacks and will lack the Union’s official recognition and there will be no guarantee that it will have it. I would insist that we recognise the positive elements of this Constitution and the inclusion of the principles relating to cultural and linguistic diversity and the principle of subsidiarity for the regions, which we believe to be very important, and a modest degree of progress in terms of the competences of the Committee of the Regions. However, for the reasons I have given, we shall reserve our definitive vote for the result of the Intergovernmental Conference.

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, I would like to ask you this: What influence do airport duties have on these practices?

Political group: PPE-DE
Madam President, 2001 is the year of public debate. I am truly amazed that the presidency has not announced an initiative at European level involving civil society. The Internet is not enough, Madam President. There was talk of the possibility of the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission organising a great initiative, geared to mobilising civil society to study and write about Europe’s aims and its future. It seems that that initiative has encountered some strange and inexplicable resistance, even within this House from a large group on your left, Madam President. It really is a sin, especially as the utter dearth of ideas the President of the Council has presented to us in – if I may say so – a rather bureaucratic and vague speech, demonstrates how much our governments are in need of some fresh inspiration. Why is Sweden abandoning an initiative which could give its presidency a positive image and also allow it to fulfil the mandate it received at Nice? The dialogue with civil society is a great deal more than a rhetorical flourish or a few e-mails. I agree that we need to have national debates, but there is now such a thing as European public opinion and, at this stage, it needs to mature. This will also facilitate the preparations for the Laeken Council which should be preceded by a great conference of European national parliaments, the natural follow-up to the public debate supposed to have taken place this year. That is the only way to make the debate on the future of Europe public and exciting, and that is the only way Parliament and the Commission will be able to find the allies they so badly need to break the purely intergovernmental logic of the forthcoming reform, give words like ‘convention’ and ‘Community method’ a revolutionary and constitutional meaning and make the 2004 Intergovernmental Conference more than a mere formality. Madam President, please tell us whether or not there is room in your programme for a European initiative like that, and if not, why not?

Political group: Verts-ALE
Rum is no longer sufficient fodder in the FOD! Faced with a truly lamentable situation for this type of quality product which, like others, has fallen victim to competition from the ACP countries, we must preserve the French demand for rum from the overseas departments and therefore extend the derogation which has been in place since 1995, that is, a reduction in excise duty, until 2009, for social and cultural reasons, in the hope that structural measures will be taken either to save the rum industry by making it competitive or by providing alternatives to the 40 000 jobs concerned. I am in favour of extending the reduction in excise duty on FOD rum for a quota of 90 000 hectolitres of pure alcohol in France, particularly as I believe, in general, that the exorbitant excise duty should be reduced on wines and spirits, in particular in the North of the Community. This is therefore a good precedent, as the Commission, which is drawing up proposals to abolish zero excise duty for wine, should also be discouraged. In my opinion, we should take every opportunity to protect against such intentions. However, I consider that, in the interim report that the Commission is due to present to us in 2006, not only should the continued presence of the reasons justifying the derogation be assessed, but Community rules concerning State aid should also be taken into consideration and the continued derogation should be conditional on the effective restructuring of the sector. I believe this to be a legitimate request. With regard to the reduction of the crippling excise duties on liqueurs and eaux-de-vie produced and consumed in Madeira and the Azores, I am also in favour of granting this derogation until 2008, with an interim report to be produced in 2005. This is for reasons of regional policy, in order to enable small firms to survive, despite competition from imported products with far lower production and marketing costs than local producers.

Political group: PPE-DE
Madam President, please note that the French s in the House will not take part in the vote as we consider that the tabled motion is not impartial. We do want the environmental directives to be applied and integrated into European policies but this must involve all the directives and not just the Natura 2000 and migratory birds directives. We also consider that the application of directives is the responsibility of the law, the Commission and the Court of Justice. We do not therefore wish to take part in this vote which we regard as partisan.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, I rise to ask whether you share my concern about the recent decision of the European Court of Justice in the Bernard Connolly case. Do you agree with me that this is an outrageous affront to free speech and that it flies directly in the face of the so-called Charter of Fundamental Rights? If so, will you please write to the European Court of Justice expressing our concern over this issue.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, several speakers have referred to the importance of the European security and defence policy. I should like to confine myself to the question of democratic and parliamentary control of this policy. Peace and security are not suitable subjects for Council meetings in camera. They must be subject to parliamentary control. It is important for decisions on military intervention to remain the responsibility of national parliaments. It is also important for budgetary questions and national defence budgets to continue to be decided in national parliaments. But everything over and above that, all questions of civil policy, come under the jurisdiction of the European Parliament. This European security and defence policy must be subject to parliamentary monitoring in this House. The President-in-Office has said that transparency and clarity are needed. It was clever to pretend that the aim is to integrate the Western European Union in the European Union, which is why the debates currently being held within the Western European Union are so absurd, trying as they are to invent a new identity for the parliamentary assembly of the Western European Union. Every iota of strength is being used at the moment to define new remits, even going so far as a European assembly for security and defence, yet another committee to add to the confusion, rather than to increase transparency. I am reminded of the policy of the Christmas goose trying to postpone Christmas. It would be good if more transparency were to reign here and if we were to come to accept that the European Parliament is the right forum. We attended the NATO assembly a few days ago, where the president of the North Atlantic assembly stated that the Western European Union was merging into the European Union, that the EU had a parliament, that NATO had a parliament and that the WEU assembly therefore had no further raison d’être. I think that is also our position and account should be taken of it at this Summit. (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, where this issue of an appeal to the European Court of Justice is concerned, the Group of the European People’s Party is being entirely pragmatic in its approach. What concerns us is that failure to come to the sort of agreement that the Commissioner has described will lead to a great deal of inconvenience for EU citizens travelling to the USA. If the Americans do not get by this route the information they require, they will obtain it by other means, whether this involves questioning at the border, mandatory visas or interviews in Consulates-General. Secondly, if we do not get this agreement, our citizens will be in no better a legal position as regards data protection; indeed, they will be in a worse one, because we will have no influence whatever on what the Americans do with the data they obtain. With this in mind, we are grateful to the Commission for its efforts, and have, as a group, expressed our opposition to an appeal to the Court of Justice not only in the course of the debate in the Committee on Citizens’ Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, but also in the resolution of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, firstly I would like to express my sincere thanks to the rapporteur, Emilia Müller, who has attended to her task in difficult circumstances. Many of us have been pestered and obstructed to an unreasonable degree by those who have masqueraded as philanthropists and defenders of the sick. I have had thousands of messages a day sent to my own private e-mail address, sometimes as many as 8 000 unnecessary messages in one day. It is not really any longer a matter of public opinion when one and the same person sends 900 messages on the same day. That is simply criminal harassment. I can just imagine what it has been like for Mrs Müller! Parliament should explore, not just in this case but especially in preparation for any future situation, practices of national parliaments that would guarantee Members’ inviolability, safety and right to work in peace. All this harassment, with people being urged to express their opinions, has been absolutely pointless. It has seemed to be more of an unscrupulous marketing campaign on the part of a private business, which did not even intend to influence the work of Parliament. Presumably the party that got the campaign off the ground also knew that alternative treatments and vitamin cures and treatments are not banned or prevented in the EU. A simple thought has many times crossed my mind: the means is the message. If the means to lobby us has been so unscrupulous, it is hard to be convinced of the sincerity of the issue that lies behind it. The two main purposes of the directive are, on the one hand, the approximation of national laws so that a single market for food supplements can be created, and, on the other, to establish an appropriate level of consumer protection in all Member States. For that reason, with this directive there should be an appropriate definition of food supplements, a scientific assessment of all ingredients should be carried out, requirements relating to consumer information and labelling should be specified, quality standards should be developed, and an adequate monitoring system should be guaranteed. All this should be totally acceptable to the honest players and even directly to their advantage. Whilst the directive will help guarantee access to the markets for all manufacturers, Parliament has been especially keen to take account of the problems of small manufacturers. For that reason, Parliament wishes to extend, by way of its own compromise proposal, the eighteen-month deadline proposed in the Council’s common position to 30 months. If these conditions are met I see no reason to reject the common position.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, over the 50-year span that has passed since the UNHCR was founded we have seen that, on both sides of the Cold War, a system for aid for refugees is needed more desperately than ever. The century that has now begun will unfortunately become known as the century of exile. The reasons are, to some extent, different to those of half a century ago, but the need for aid is crucial and, furthermore, more globally spread than it was then. Since the European Council in Tampere, the EU has made headway in the development of measures connected with asylum and immigration policy and, obviously, the EU must achieve a common strategy to eliminate the reasons why people become refugees and guarantee their humane treatment, irrespective of the country that is taking them in. That is not enough, however: we must give our determined support to the UNHCR, both in political and economic terms, to ensure there is a balance between the issues of predictability, flexibility and geographical location.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, I will not discuss the content of this agreement since many speakers, including the rapporteur, have already covered it. I just want to highlight the political significance of the signing of this free trade agreement between the European Union and Mexico. First, from the strategic and political angles, it is important for the European Union to build up its relationship with a country that is so important in that part of the world and which, above all, is making progress in terms of respect for the values of human rights. Mexico’s membership of the OECD was just mentioned, and its observer status at the Council of Europe should also be remembered. Nor should we forget the opportunities represented by this market of 100 million people. But obviously this political symbolism can in no way allay our concern about environmental issues, social issues and above all human rights issues, and many speakers have already referred to them here today. What we do know is that our concern must make us more rigorous in our relations with Mexico. That is just what we will be in ten days’ time. The European Parliament’s delegation for relations with the countries of Central America and Mexico will be visiting that country. We are not going just for institutional dialogue between partners, between the Congress and the European Parliament. We are going to talk to non-governmental organisations. We are also going to Chiapas to talk to the indigenous people and representatives of local society. That is how rigorous we believe we need to be but it will not detract from our support for approval of this agreement.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, I am speaking on behalf of an alliance of opportunists and hypocrites. On behalf of the European Parliamentary Labour Party, I wish to say that we are strong supporters of a Member Statute being introduced before the 2004 European Parliamentary elections. Because of that, the British Labour delegation voted for the /Green/ resolution. It bests reflects the entire delegation's desire for transparency and the renumeration of MEPs' salaries and expenses, as did the separate motions by those groups for which we also voted. The / resolution supports the existing text from the Legal Affairs Committee and that involves contentious primary legislation which is not acceptable to Council and therefore almost certain to fail. The text does not make clear the requirement for there to be complete and transparent reform of all Members' expenses. This is not a position, in all friendship to our colleagues in the , which we are able to accept. The / resolution also calls on the Commission to give an opinion on the text of the Legal Affairs Committee before it has been discussed by us in plenary. This seems to the British Labour delegation a recipe for further delay. It will be fundamentally our problem and our responsibility.

Political group: PSE