GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
I welcome the fact that the Zabell report tries to address the problem of intentional doping and proceeds from the presumption of innocence based on the charter of human rights. Unfortunately, UK athletes – Linford Christie, Dougie Walker and Gary Cadogan – were not presumed to be innocent by the International Athletics Association. Despite evidence, based on research by Aberdeen University, that nandrolene could be produced by a combination of dietary supplements and vigorous training, Mark Richardson is still waiting, eight days before the Olympics, in the Olympic village not knowing whether he is going to compete or not. Linford Christie has campaigned throughout his career against doping in sport. He would not do anything now to jeopardise that. These cases demonstrate the need for the World Anti-Doping Agency to harmonise disciplinary procedure that would safeguard the rights of athletes but, at the same time, swiftly punish those who knowingly take drugs and are guilty of taking drugs.

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, those of us in Parliament, and in European society, who want a political Europe and who welcome the new Member States, those who want a Constitution that will take the EU forward as a political entity that is united in its diversity are in the vast majority. Let us learn from this historic experience, which is unique in the world today, on a continent that, as recently as last century, suffered unspeakably tragic events. Stateless nations, such as mine, Galicia, are still not recognised as such in the draft Constitution. Given that what we want is a political Europe, a Europe of the peoples and the citizens, we shall continue to struggle for such recognition and for self-determination within the EU. Whilst we want a political Europe, Mr President, it must be said that this will not exist without a social Europe, which must be made a reality as a matter of urgency, by integrating our fellow peoples that have a per capita income of less than 40% of that in the Union of the Fifteen. Against this backdrop, it is paradoxical and irresponsible that the richest States, which claim that they want a political Europe, are attempting to impose a reduced European Union budget as low as 1% of Gross National Income. This is despite the fact that, with enlargement, the number of inhabitants of regions eligible for Objective 1 (whose income is less than 75% of the average per capita) is set to double; to put it more clearly, this figure is set to jump from 63 million people at present to 153 million in the coming years. Similarly, nothing will be resolved if the budget is limited to the 1.14% proposed by the Commission. If we continue this way, we will not be moving towards a social Europe. Funding per capita for Objective 1 regions will be halved, thereby blocking a cohesion policy that has benefited and defined the entire Union. This will have a negative effect on both the Union of the Fifteen and on the enlarged Union of Twenty-Seven.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs Niebler has done a brilliant job with this very difficult subject, which I had to deal with on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport. No one will deny that, in view of developments in technology, a new regulatory framework on frequency policy is needed. However, certain basic principles have to be borne in mind here, since although the technology itself is neutral, the way it is used is not. The Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, whose unanimous opinion I am presenting here, has, amongst other things, considered how it can be guaranteed that adequate transmission capacity is reserved for content addressed to the general public. In other words, in addition to economic issues, consideration also has to be given to political, cultural and social aspects, and also to the right to privacy and to consumer protection. This applies first and foremost to broadcast programming content relating to the expression of cultural diversity, freedom of speech and pluralism, which therefore plays a significant part in shaping opinion as part of the democratic process. This is all the more important given that the proposal quite rightly stresses the fact that radio frequencies are a scarce resource and that this will not change in the longer term. It would therefore be wrong to place too much emphasis on economic efficiency. Products geared to the general public should also have a guaranteed place in an open competition-oriented market for electronic communication networks and services. The Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy has not entirely taken on board the views of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport in this respect, as we would have wished, but it does recognise the principle of freedom of speech, and this is a key reason why we are willing to vote for the report as it stands. It is also emphasised elsewhere that democratic, social and cultural interests connected with frequency use need to be taken into account. The Member States should also be expected to comply with that requirement, including Italy – please note, Mr Berlusconi.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, I warmly welcome this report and congratulate the rapporteur on it. There is only one area of serious concern, and that is where the rapporteur extends the principle of conditionality to the area of debt relief. In almost every other area I would support conditionality. I strongly believe that we have a responsibility to use the tools available to us to promote good governance, democracy and the rule of law in our international relations. But while these should indeed guide our aid policies, there is an important distinction to be made when it comes to debt relief. That is because history demonstrates that responsibility for the debt lies with the lenders as well as the borrowers. Moreover, since the original loans were made the debt stock has continued to grow way beyond the original loans. Many countries are repaying their debts several times over. Some countries still spend more on debt repayment than on health and education combined, and yet the people suffering from this diversion of resources are certainly not those who had any benefit from the original loans that were given. There is a valid argument that says, what is the point of cancelling debt if undemocratic governments simply misuse the funds for their own ends? That remains a possibility. But there is perhaps a stronger possibility that once populations know that debt has been cancelled, they can exert more pressure themselves on their governments to achieve much needed social spending. Mr Van Hecke's report says that applying conditionality requires consistency and courage. I agree. But in the context of debt relief it also requires justice and a recognition that in many cases, the original debt has already been repaid many times over.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Haug, for the outstanding cooperation, and also the chairman of the Committee on Budgets, Mr Wynn. I have two comments to make in connection with the document now on the table, and these are directed at the Council and the Commission. To start with, I want to talk about the overall agricultural budget. Of course we know that it comprises almost 45% of the EU budget, but if you add up what the EU Member States contribute and what the European Union contributes to the agricultural budget, you arrive at 1.9%, and a substantial amount of that is spent on the development of rural areas and environmental development. That is a mere pittance compared with what other trade blocks in the world spend. If you consider that American companies receive the equivalent of three times as much aid and a capricious country such as Turkey spends in excess of 10% of government money on agriculture and horticulture, then it is Europe that wants something for nothing. My second point concerns BSE. I think you should know that on the night of 23 and 24 November, when we sat round the table with Mrs Parly, we fought like lions to get more money for BSE. The Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development told us to use the financial leeway between the financial perspective and the final budget, which amounted to upwards of generous EUR 900 million at the time, EUR 600 million of which was to be used for BSE. We fought tooth and nail to add a few extra million euro. A week further down the line and two cases of BSE have come to light in Germany. This means that in actual fact we already need a supplementary budget of EUR 900 million. This would suggest that the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development in this House was keenly aware of what needed to be done and was also fiercely critical of the Council and the Commission in this respect, for their handling of BSE policy. Swifter decision-making based on tests as opposed to draconian measures after the event would have cost considerably less and it would be too stupid for words, regarding this political policy, also on the part of the Council and the Commission, to say that from now on we will include the bill in the agricultural budget. That is impossible because we have an agreement with the Council and the Commission for the remainder of the agricultural budget, for all the necessary allocations, and that means supplementary budgets. It also means that this extra money must come from the Member States, and not be plundered from the existing agricultural budget, because – and I am addressing this comment to both the Council and the Commission – I assume you have given your word on this, regarding the agreement we reached.

Political group: PPE-DE
On behalf of the European Parliamentary Labour Party, I welcome Mr Morillon's report. We believe that Turkey should be treated the same way as any other applicant country. While it is clear that Turkey does not yet meet the Copenhagen criteria, we should be working closely with them to achieve that objective – just as we have done with all the other applicants. We cannot consistently seek new obstacles to put in their path. We opposed the amendments on the Armenian massacre for exactly this reason. That event took place during the time of the Ottoman Empire. I do not recall events which took place during the British Empire being used to obstruct the United Kingdom's accession. Consistency and honesty should be the hallmarks of our dealings with any applicant country. - Jové Peres Report (A5-0275/2000)

Political group: PSE
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, what an interesting answer. This may be the first time that this House has heard a political statement from the Council which goes much further than the usual strictly formal statements on the conflict in the Western Sahara. This answer with real content is very welcome. But I have to tell you the following: having listened to this response, I am under the legitimate impression that in the Council too much weight may be given to a view of the conflict in the Western Sahara that does not consider that the solution to it may only be based on compliance with the United Nations Settlement Plan, which includes holding a referendum on the self-determination of the Sahrawi people, a referendum that has been blocked for many years by one of the parties concerned, Morocco. You talked about many things: for example, the latest Security Council resolution, but at no time did you refer to the United Nations peace plan. Neither did you refer to the referendum and, also, you have insisted too much on some aspects, whilst forgetting others, for example the violation of human rights in the occupied territories of the Western Sahara.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am grateful for this opportunity to talk about Iran again today. The reform process in Iran is at risk. Even before the newly elected reform parliament has been able to meet, there has been a menacing intensification of the power struggle in Iran. We are dismayed at the manipulative reporting of the conference held by the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Berlin, and we are deeply concerned about the arrests of journalists and critical intellectuals in the wake of this conference. We are also concerned about the ban on all pro-reform newspapers and magazines published in Iran. We call on the Iranian authorities to immediately release the conference participants and journalists who have been arrested, and to cancel all warrants of arrest issued in this connection, to lift the ban on the prohibited newspapers and magazines and, last but by no means least, to respect the political will of the Iranian people, which was so remarkably expressed in the election results. We call on the Council, the Member States and the Commission to support these demands on Iran and to make respect for human rights a prerequisite for further cooperation with Iran.

Political group: Verts-ALE
I understand the caution with which the Council must answer, given the fact that there is so little unanimity among the countries of the European Union, but it remains disgraceful. In effect we are subsidising the sugar industry – last year to the tune of over EUR 800 million – as if there were not enough sugar in the world and as if we were eager for these subsidies to help our farmers survive. I really think that the policy we are pursuing with regard to the developing countries is and continues to be hypocritical. A splendid initiative like “Everything but Arms” is actually tainted by the fact that we maintain our hypocritical attitude and prefer to continue doing what suits us, by supporting the sugar producers, who traditionally belong to the castes of our nineteenth-century industrialists. I note that we have once again made an exception. I hope that the Council will continue to exert pressure for unanimity for reforms.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, I should like to thank Mrs Patrie who has produced an excellent report on the precautionary principle. It is no mean task to define the precautionary principle. I personally think that it is impossible to create a general precautionary principle which applies in all situations. Each situation requires its own precautionary principle. This is hard for us to accept, but foodstuffs and chemicals are not the same thing. They cannot therefore be dealt with in the same way either. Our task is to create the framework required to protect both the environment and the health of people and animals. The precautionary principle does not look the same in our respective countries. However, what we need to do now is to create a common precautionary principle at EU level. The principle must be clear. We must be able to uphold it internationally, and it must also be given legal weight. Several people in this House have already mentioned the mad cow disease scandal as one of the many scandals we have experienced recently. This scandal reveals something extremely important, namely the importance of having the courage to make decisions even when we do not have all the proof on the table. But there are more examples than mad cow disease alone, examples which are perhaps not as spectacular, but where it is just as important to make decisions. We have the example of phthalates in children's toys and we also have this strange idea of putting toys inside sweets, ice cream and other edible products. In the one case, we say that we do not have sufficient proof and, in the other, that there have not been enough serious accidents for us to have the courage to take action. It is just a shame that it is not the scientific community but the internal market that controls what is released onto the market. This is an untenable situation. In reality we cannot have this kind of situation. I support the whole of Mrs Patrie's report but I would also like to highlight what Mrs Schörling said earlier in her speech, and that is that we need a stricter position with regard to the burden of proof, particularly as regards products without prior approval. Producers and manufacturers must be able to present proof that a product is in fact safe. We must avoid a situation in which the consumer acts as some sort of paying guinea pig when it comes to new products on the market.

Political group: PSE
In adopting our position, we have been guided by the following basic attitudes: 1. Each candidate country must be given a precise and binding accession date. This date must be based upon negotiations with the country concerned, in which account is taken of the major difficulties the candidate country has in making the required adjustments. If the country so wishes, it should be possible to extend the the transition period. 2. Enlargement will demand significant outlay on the part of the EU which must be offset by savings in the agricultural and military fields and in the area of the structural funds. 3. When the candidate countries accede to the EU, they must be treated in the same way as all the other EU Member States. Under no circumstances can we accept a situation in which new Member States are treated as second class members. 4. It is unfortunate that the report has taken no account at all of the position and conditions of women in the adjustment process. 5. Contrary to normal practice, the rapporteur has chosen to include various appendices as a second part of the report itself. This part contains very many neo-liberal assertions and proposals of which we are critical. In adopting our position, we have proceeded only on the basis of the main part of the report.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, many people are very nervous about the EU’s being a sort of slide or helter-skelter of the kind that children use and on which there is really no stopping once you have started moving. People are afraid that there are some folk down there in the EU, as they put it, who are trying to seize more competences, or more power, without asking them first. Those myths are nourished on a daily basis by organised opponents, some of whom we have, of course, in Parliament. I am therefore very pleased with this report, because it helps knock many of these myths on the head. By that, I mean it states once and for all that it is the Member States who have the power, unless this is entrusted to the EU, and it states that the EU is a dynamic community in which competences are shared when it is most relevant to do so. The report also has no truck with any catalogue of competences, which would make cooperation far too rigid a matter. The report is in actual fact very realistic, and Parliament can now no longer be accused of consisting of extremists with their heads in the clouds. That is something which I also hope that organised opponents in my own country, Denmark, will take account of. I am talking in this context to Mr Bonde, even though he is not here this evening. I have a couple of observations on individual parts of the report. On the subject of the subsidiarity principle, I am delighted it has been stated that this is not just a legal principle but also a political principle, for we must have more focus on subsidiarity as a political principle and thus force the Commission to explain itself more effectively to people. I myself have proposed that an individual Commissioner be responsible for subsidiarity, for that would give us elected representatives here in Parliament the ability to hold the Commission responsible for the subsidiarity issue and so force it both to explain itself directly to people and to justify its actions to them.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, Commissioner, I intend to be as brief as our successful rapporteur in the conciliation procedure. However, let me just offer her my hearty congratulations on her excellent report and brilliant success, as some of the previous speakers have done. Contrary to some previous speakers, I think it is most important that the report should seek not just to stabilise concentrations of greenhouse gases but to reduce them, especially given the fact that we need to achieve a demonstrable success by 2005 under the terms of the Kyoto protocol. I think it is fundamental, given the reservation which this Parliament has always expressed in connection with voluntary obligations in environmental agreements, that we have managed to include the passage stating that data will be used from 2003 onwards to monitor the voluntary obligations of the car industry. I also think that it is fundamental – and the scope is not extended by this decision – that we have managed to bring the Commission so far down the line that it is looking into implementing harmonised measurements for the specific CO2 emissions from class N1 vehicles and presenting proposals to this effect. I think that is a huge success. I should like once again to congratulate the rapporteur and vote in favour of this report.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, the process of enlarging the European Union by ten more States is now entering its final and decisive stage. Our group has always followed it and played its part in shaping it; we have been active in doing this, but have kept a critical mind. There are real fears that the hopes enlargement has nurtured over many years – for social improvements and an economic upturn – will not be fulfilled in precisely that way. The stertorous political utterances, heard over and over again in this Parliament, about overcoming of the division of Europe and doing away with the inheritance of Communism, block out any more sophisticated view of Europe's post-war history and, there being so many different problems in the central and eastern European states, go over people's heads. People are hardly being involved in the process at all. The process went ahead along largely administrative and technical lines and was seen by Brussels as having to do with the acceptance of the acquis communautaire. The governments of the candidate countries were sometimes not allowed to say much, and their parliaments were programmed to give approval after largely uncritical debates. The acquis communautaire, which every country is to adopt and transpose, constitutes a paper mountain of over 80 000 pages. If – as is the case – officials are scarcely able to get an overview of this, how can the public be expected to? Under such conditions, there was little chance of the debate on the future of Europe, which we are often told we should be having, really getting going, either in the Fifteen or in the candidate countries, and little desire that it should do so. That there is particularly deep-seated frustration among rural communities is no secret. If you examine the differentials resulting from enlargement after previous accessions, you cannot fail to see that parity is to come about only in 2003. Coupled with that, it is intended that the cooperative firms, alleged to be relics of the Communist command economy, should have the ground cut from under their feet by new directives designed to improve efficiency. Let me say in blunt terms that European integration will not be made to work well by means of a reheated anti-communism, which cannot do other than target a fair number of the leading politicians elected by the peoples of the candidate countries. I could name to you several good acquaintances of mine who fall into this category. It seems necessary, in view of the dangerous lack of information, that we ask as a matter of priority, what effect the European Union has on the public's everyday lives and how we are meant to discuss it with them. What is demanded of us is to talk less about transparency and democracy, and do more about them!

Political group: GUE-NGL