GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Madam President, Commissioner Nielson, it was naturally with great consternation that we heard the appalling news of the earthquake in Bam. Right in the middle of the Christmas holidays, the TV screens were filled with horrific pictures of dead and injured people and of thousands of people desperately searching for their relatives in a city in ruins. On behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, I wish to express our condolences to, and deepest sympathy with, the Iranian people at this difficult time. Naturally, the EU should continue its work with the Iranian authorities to help those affected obtain care, roofs over their heads and other necessities. We should also help with the reconstruction of the beautiful historic city. Our concern for, and solidarity with, the Iranian people also extends to their access to democracy and human rights. The Group of the Europe Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party is very concerned about these areas. There is still a lot to be done, because the Iranian regime is anything but democratic. Serious attacks on women, minorities, opposition members and dissidents are unfortunately part of everyday life. We are extremely concerned about the latest development and the Council of Guardians’ involvement in the forthcoming election. By not accepting thousands of candidates throughout the country – more than half of those who have put their names forward – Iran’s Council of Guardians is again showing its unwillingness to reform the Iranian system of government. Classifying the rejects as a bunch of criminals in view of the fact that they have had contacts with, for example, a number of groups disliked by the Council of Guardians rings hollow. On that logic, a quarter of the legislators already sitting would be criminals. If Iran wants ever to be counted among the democratic states, it must accept that political legitimacy is obtained from the people in free elections, not through the ayatollahs’ capricious interpretation of the will of God. Just like everyone else, the Iranian people wants democracy and human rights. We in the Group would call upon the Iranian leaders not to interfere in the election but to allow the candidates to stand so that the election is as fair and open as possible. In that connection, I want, like my fellow MEPs, to call upon the Commission to strengthen and develop the human rights dialogue with Iran. It must be something more than just polite chit-chat. If it is to be meaningful, it must be clear, persistent and consistent and also be evaluated on a regular basis. I hope that you, Commissioner Nielson, together with Commissioner Patten and Mr Solana, will be able to act in such a way as to inject new life into these discussions, partly in the light of the work on getting Iran to ratify and implement the Non-Proliferation Agreement.

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, the agenda of the Intergovernmental Conference is insufficient. The Commission has said so, and all the political groups in this Parliament have said so. It is insufficient, but the Helsinki conclusions also leave open the possibility of resolving this insufficiency: I believe that this is the task of the Portuguese Presidency at the moment and it is what Parliament is currently asking for. It is not a very ambitious task; it simply requires common sense. We need the Intergovernmental Conference to deal with other issues, because we do not want Intergovernmental Conferences to take place every three or four years. We want this Intergovernmental Conference to resolve these issues for some time to come. In our opinion, Mr President, there are essentially three issues which should be introduced into the conference agenda. The first refers to the role of Europe in the world. The institutional aspect of the security and defence policy, which has seen great progress in recent times, and which enjoys majority support in terms of European public opinion, should finally come together in Nice. Another important issue which we should consider is reinforced cooperation. Enlargement, our objective for the next few years, and the European Union’s historic challenge, will require flexible formulas in terms of implementing our policies. I believe that we all understand the arguments for this. Therefore, in order to facilitate enlargement, that agenda will have to include a discussion of reinforced cooperation. Finally, there is another issue which seems to me to be important. A few weeks ago we began a novel exercise which, in the eyes of the European citizens, will be of supreme importance: the European Union Charter of Fundamental Rights. The Tampere conclusions talk of the possibility of a declaration, or its inclusion in the Treaty. I believe that, in the end, we will have to incorporate the Charter of Fundamental Rights into the Treaty. We will thereby achieve something important: we will link the European Union with the citizens. I will express it in your beautiful language, in the words of a Portuguese poet. We should link human rights with that “comboio de corda que se chama o coração' [“clockwork train known as the heart”]. Therefore, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, you have an important task ahead of you and this Parliament trusts you to carry it out. Mr Seguro has made an appeal and I would also like to hear the Portuguese Presidency’s commitment with regard to the question from the Member from the Socialist Group.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, at the invitation of UN mediator Mr Brahimi, I had the privilege of talking to the Afghan leaders at the Bonn Conference. I was at that time chairman of the Committee on Women’s Rights and Equal Opportunities and had listened to a representative of the Rawa organisation speaking about the position of women in Afghanistan. I was consequently able to put to the Afghan leaders the obvious demands that women be included in the provisional and permanent governments and not marginalised in the reconstruction work. Together with non-governmental organisations, the committee arranged a conference for women from Afghanistan. We then presented the joint priorities in a resolution adopted by Parliament during the December 2001 part-session. On behalf of the committee, I requested that the Committee on Budgets introduce a special supplementary item concerning aid for the women of Afghanistan, something which the Committee on Budgets and Parliament in fact went on to do. Why am I giving you this background information? It is because I see extremely few traces of it in the joint resolution. There is no mention of women and their human rights. It is the Afghan Government’s priorities, rather than women’s, that are mentioned in the resolution. Nor is there any requirement that all aid projects should be informed by the dimension of equality. Women’s rights are quickly forgotten in the man’s world in which we live. The strong and pro-active Minister for Equality in the provisional Afghan Government was removed, and the role of Afghan women is now all but totally eclipsed, in spite of the fact that probably two thirds of the population consist of women and children. I want to ask the Commission and the Council of Ministers how this is to be interpreted. Have women been forgotten again? Are no demands concerning women being made of the Afghan Government? Women were victims under both the Northern Alliance and the Taliban. Women are the most important actors in the cause of peace. A policy for Afghanistan must be a policy for the majority, that is to say for women and children.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, Commissioner, the holding of the 2004 Olympic Games at their birthplace, in Greece, is a very good opportunity for us to highlight the humanitarian values connected with the Olympic spirit and with the letter of the Olympic Charter, which emphasises respect for fundamental human rights throughout the world. On the basis, therefore, of the serious violations of the rights of workers which we have noted, including of a great many women and children, in the production of sports clothing and footwear, we call on the European Commission to take initiatives and to demand that sport article industries and their world federations apply the rules of the International Labour Organisation. The Commission also needs to cooperate with the International Olympic Committee in order to ensure that the International Olympic Committee includes respect for the internationally accepted rights of workers in the Olympic Charter and the Ethics Code. We also call on the International Olympic Committee to demand that contracts concluded with sponsors and commercial companies include compliance with internationally recognised employment standards and fundamental rights. In other words, all products which bear the logo of the International Olympic Committee must have been manufactured in accordance with the rules of the International Labour Organisation. I should also like, Commissioner, to stress the importance of a campaign to raise awareness and inform Europeans in the run up to the 2004 Olympic Games.

Political group: PSE
Thank you very much, Commissioner. I have more or less the same statistics as you. Indeed, I am this very moment holding in my hands the latest Eurostat report of 5 September 2000. The figures are more or less as you gave them. What I would really like to highlight is the following: for many years now, Commissioner, long before you were appointed to your post, I have been trying to find out – even a rough estimate will do – how many people have found work as a result of these employment actions, and I still have not succeeded. What prospects do we have of finding out at some point, albeit from one action if not more generally? Secondly, you said we would have the results by the end of 2001. But I think it is totally unacceptable that there can be a debate using these figures, which have been collated throughout the European Union, month by month, category by category, and only the column referring to Greece is empty. I just wonder what we can discuss on this basis. I apologise for having to say this, but I have run out of patience.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, the Commission is an essentially political institution, in my view at least, and I would like the Commissioner to give me a political reply. Commissioner, I have listened very carefully to your reply for 6 minutes, but I would like to ask, from a political point of view, whether it can seriously be argued that the removal of these preferences, through the modulation mechanism, is going to benefit a country such as Colombia which has 26 million people living in poverty and in which 30 000 people die as a result of violence each year? Or a country such as Costa Rica, where these products are cultivated in sensitive areas, where there are immigrants, heads of families and women? I frankly believe, Commissioner, that they are not going to benefit these countries, and that no comparison can be made with Mexico or with Chile. You avoided answering the fourth and fifth aspects of my question and I am not going to ask you to reply, but you spoke of flexibility and I would like to know how the Commission measures its flexibility. By being able to hold talks in relation to the entry into force of these measures? Would the Commission be prepared to remove agricultural substitute products from this system? And finally, what does the Commission intend to do when the Drugs system of generalised preferences expires in 2004? Does the Commission intend to renew it?

Political group: PPE-DE
draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs. – Mr President, I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate on behalf of the Employment and Social Affairs Committee, even though that was a very last-minute edition which I think exemplifies a lot of what is wrong at the moment with the way we think about sustainability within this institution. We are not integrating our social, economic and environmental policies. They should be pulling in the same direction, and they certainly do not at present. It is also exemplified by the fact that the one Commissioner we have with us this evening is the Environment Commissioner. I welcome her here, but when we are discussing sustainability I would very much like to see in future the Commissioners from my own committee, and also at least from the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs. If we are to have long-term sustainability and develop a truly green economy, we have to take care to foster environmental-friendly businesses and use resources efficiently, and that includes the way in which we use our workforces. Hence my committee’s call for rapid progress in enabling people to work efficiently through effective consultation and participation, because democracy is also part of sustainability, as are reduced working hours and good quality work in safe working conditions supported by an effective system of social security. If we are demanding that businesses provide social and environmental audits, as we quite rightly do, we need the accountants and other professionals than can do that. If we want builders who can construct energy-efficient buildings, we need to train them. Hence my committee’s call for all European Union funded training initiatives to take the environmental dimension fully into account, if we are really preparing people for the future. Social inclusion, as has already been said, is a key component of a sustainable society, hence the need for a guaranteed minimum income to provide for basic needs. We must combat discrimination and poverty. At present the dispossessed feel they have no stake in the future and that, under anybody’s reasoning, is a wicked waste. Sustainable development is about creating a world in which there are no losers. We cannot achieve this goal if we continue with policies that pull in different directions and even undermine each other. Our common future depends on finding an effective way to ensure integration and sustainability.

Political group: Verts-ALE
I congratulate Mrs Maes on the report she has drawn up, to which I give my support. Her work deals with a subject of vital importance: enhancing the safety of third countries’ aircraft using Community airports. I therefore welcome the joint text at third reading, which contains three items that I consider essential, namely: - the need for inspection procedures to be implemented uniformly across the EU, thus preventing third-country aircraft from being diverted to Community airports with less rigorous controls; - the importance of public access to information on airlines’ compliance with safety standards; - European authorities must be able to inspect an aircraft and ground it whenever there is reason to suspect that it does not comply with safety rules.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, many things have already been said, but I would like to take this opportunity to condemn Europe’s lack of unity with regard to the particularly sensitive issue of harmonising the asylum and immigration policies, an issue which is all too often supplanted by that of combating illegal immigration. Is it worthwhile refreshing the failing memory of our governments of Article 63 of the Treaty, which defines the process leading to the harmonisation and communitarisation of questions related to the right to asylum and immigration? I wish, for my part, to express my frustration at the pious hopes that we hear in each statement made by Council representatives on these issues, when, in reality, obviously, no EU Member State actually wishes to share with its neighbours one of the prerogatives of national sovereignty, namely the admittance of foreigners to its territory. Until now, the proposed measures have mainly been focused on the question of illegal immigration. On the question of establishing proper procedures for immigration, there has been a lack of consultation with the European Parliament, on the one hand, and a lack of agreement between the governments of the Fifteen on the other. After the Tampere Summit in October 1999, however, the Commission approached the task with a positive outlook. We believe that it is impossible to discuss combating illegal immigration unless we also consider proper procedures for immigration and the conditions for integrating foreigners. We need a global approach, this has been pointed out. It is essential. It is not a fortress Europe that we want. To sum up, I shall say that the lack of political will on the part of the EU countries leads us to confirm that we still have a great deal of work to do before we achieve the European area of freedom, security and justice which was, in fact, one of the fundamental themes of the Treaty of Amsterdam.

Political group: PSE
There is no common public opinion in Europe. Some issues are considered extremely important in one EU Member State, while they leave the inhabitants of another Member State completely cold. If there are opinions on certain topics, they will be completely contradictory or they will be the same right across the groups. Important examples of this are tobacco growing, the role of the regional funds, the funding of the common agricultural policy, the choice between Brussels and Strasbourg as the EP’s meeting place, tax facilities for remote islands, ocean fishing and tourism. When the topic of tourism is raised in the EP, this invariably revolves around the issue of transferring the income from the people living in northern Member States to the Mediterranean beaches. Far less attention is paid to the effects on the environment, traffic, safety and consumer protection, although there are many difficulties in those areas specifically. These problems in particular are only considered to be the responsibility of the local and regional governments, while the ‘tourist as a milch cow’ is seen as something that falls within the EU’s remit. In practice, we always adopt documents that underline the economic importance of areas that rely heavily on tourism for their revenues. In many cases, these areas want even more tourists, preferably spread equally across the four seasons. It is only out of solidarity with the inhabitants of economically weak regions that I am not voting against these proposals, but I am of the view that we do not solve anything by adopting such paper proposals.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, slowly and all too belatedly, a common European security policy is in the process of taking shape, one which, though it leaves a bad taste in the mouth to say so, is, at it were, being built on the ruins of Kosovo. The EU did not manage to stop the catastrophe in the Balkans in time, and we shall forever be accountable to our children for this failure. As Liberals, we consider it absolutely crucial for the EU to be able in future to intervene with personnel and resources in countries in its immediate vicinity, to be able to engage in civil crisis management, humanitarian efforts and peace-keeping exercises based on European values and human rights. The EU must adopt a credible and independent policy in this area, but it is important to retain the commitment of the United States and the transatlantic link. NATO is at present the most important organisation for peace and security in Europe. The EU’s Member States must nonetheless soon come to some definite decisions about the common security policy. There are three main questions which must be answered at Feira and which I want to submit to the Council. What is the distribution of labour between the EU and NATO to look like? We must develop complementary, and not duplicate, structures. How will it be possible to guarantee the influence of the non-aligned States upon expanding security policy? Thirdly, a question in connection with which there are many good proposals in Mrs Lalumière’s excellent report: how will it be possible for the European Parliament and the national parliaments to be guaranteed influence upon, and participation in, the decisions so that the latter are made openly and democratically in the interests of our European citizens?

Political group: ELDR
Madam President, I rise only very briefly because, given the plethora of information on the table in the form of voting lists, I should like to clarify that anyone who wishes to express agreement with the rapporteur must in this case vote against the report. That is, anyone who is of the same opinion as the rapporteur must vote against the report. (Applause) (After the vote on the joint text by the European Parliament delegation to the Conciliation Committee, the President referred to the Rules of Procedure, having noted that the votes were tied) President. – Given this delicate situation, we shall, as always, be carefully observing the Rules of Procedure. This matter concerns Rule 128(2 and 3), which says that in the event of a tied vote on the agenda as a whole or on a text put to a split vote, the text put to the vote shall be deemed adopted, but that ‘in all other cases where there is a tied vote, without prejudice to those Rules which require qualified majorities, the text or proposal shall be deemed rejected’. The text is therefore rejected. (Loud applause) I believe that this is perfectly clear. Are there any objections?

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it is a matter of importance to all of us that speedy and effective help should be provided in disaster situations. Might you not contemplate the compilation of a Green Paper, listing for the benefit of all our offices and of all the voluntary organisations, what the options are, or create a virtual platform where the relevant bodies could coordinate their efforts in an emergency?

Political group: PPE-DE