GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Mr President, on a point of order, at yesterday's vote on the Watson report on the European Arrest Warrant, there was confusion on the numbering of amendments. You will see from today's report that what was Amendment No 3 has been penned over as 4. Even in the Official Report it is not quite clear on some of the pages. Amendment No 3, which dealt with the legal concept of habeas corpus, had been circulated to us in the Irish delegation of the Group. We knew that the amendment would be defeated but nonetheless I and a number of my colleagues decided to vote for it because of our firm belief in the principle of habeas corpus and that it is a good one. We wish to indicate our vote that this legal remedy should have a place in European law. Looking at the record of yesterday's proceedings, Amendment No 3, which we received yesterday morning, became Amendment No 4 at the vote. Our decision to vote for the principle of habeas corpus was negated by this change in the numbering of the amendment. I wish it to be recorded here that our vote was intended to support the principle of habeas corpus.

Political group: PPE-DE
I would like to thank Mr Danielsson for his reply. In some ways it is positive if it is saying that the Eurogroup does not make any decisions at all. My first supplementary question is this: is it really the case that no real decisions are made in the Eurogroup, or is it the case that decisions have already been taken by the time the matter reaches Ecofin, which simply goes along with whatever has actually been decided in the Eurogroup? My second question concerns the future. The Presidency is aware that proposals have come from a number of sides, not least from Belgium, to develop the informal “Euro Council” and add more functions. Mr Danielsson confirmed that the Eurogroup has started to take on additional functions and address more issues. My second question is therefore: can we be absolutely sure that the Eurogroup will not actually take over more and more real power in the future? It is vital for the countries not in the euro to be able to remain outside the euro area without losing power over matters directly concerning the euro.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, Mr Solana, Commissioner, we have all been horrified by the pictures of the hostage-taking in Moscow, and we have to unequivocally hold fast to the fact that nothing justifies the taking of hostages. Nor is there any dispute as to the right of any state to refuse to be blackmailed by such terrorist acts and to take appropriate counter-measures. These, though, must be aimed only at the terrorists and must not make an entire people culpable. There is room for criticism of the Russian leadership's lack of candour in handling public relations after the hostages were released, with particular reference to the delay in getting medical aid for the freed hostages and the way their families were prevented from visiting them in hospital. There is also the question of why, unlike the hostages, the special forces that were sent in suffered no adverse health effects through the gas, even though they were operating without gas masks. If eyewitness reports are accurate in stating that the hostages' captors were shot while still unconscious, then that represents a flagrant breach of every system of law and must therefore be condemned. Violence can never be the solution to a problem; only peaceful means will do. That is why the Russian Government must be told that, if they, in effect, label an entire people, and its elected representatives, as terrorists, then by so doing they are depriving themselves of the last partner with whom they can even attempt to resolve this problem in a peaceful way. I believe it to be the European Union's task to support Russia and help it to get a process of negotiation going without delay.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Madam President, as one political group chairman has spoken, as is his right of course, I would also like to briefly make our Group’s position clear. The person in question holds political views most of which I find loathsome. But there are legal systems in the European Union and I would always defend the rights of all Members of the European Parliament under those legal systems. If legal proceedings are being taken against a Member of this House in a Member State, then we should await the outcome of those proceedings before we can make a final decision here. (Applause) Mr Hänsch, if my information is correct, and I have not had a chance to talk to you about this, but I say this with all due respect to our former President, Klaus Hänsch, then our former President specifically made the same point in relation to the Tapie case, that is to say that we should await the outcome of the appeal procedure before we reach a decision here. What was right then cannot be wrong now. We must respect the rights of every individual Member of this House, whatever his political views are. My Group will always argue for that, even if the Members involved belong to other groups. We will defend these rights with equal vigour, because they are our common rights. If we violate the law, we can say goodbye to the European Union. That is why we respect and defend the law – no matter who it applies to. (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE
Madam President, the failure of the mid-term review of the Doha round at Cancún was a defeat with regard to accelerating world economic growth. It was also an undeserved defeat for us in the EU; but above all it was a defeat for the developing countries. The atmosphere when the meeting started was cautiously optimistic. The European Union and the United States of America had reached consensus on a joint bid to lower agricultural trade barriers and subsidies, and an agreement on the introduction of generic drugs to improve medical care in the developing countries had been made. What, then, went wrong? If we ignore the chairman’s in my opinion hasty decision at the moment when everyone had prepared for at least 35 hours more of intensive negotiations, there are surely many reasons why it went wrong. New as far as the Doha meeting was concerned was the appearance of the Group of 21 nations. This group, as has already been said here, probably did not have only trade goals, but also aims relating to power politics, as, for example, its opposition to real or imagined US unilateralism. Whilst these countries talked as if they were representing all underdeveloped countries, they themselves were not prepared to abandon the high trade barriers they had in respect of poorer countries. Part of the problem over cotton is connected with this. It is time we understood, on a more universal scale than just Europe, that the development of the less developed countries is starting to differentiate very greatly. Moreover, it is worth asking what a developing country actually is. Is India, taken as a whole, still one, or even China or Brazil? Other developed countries should also follow the EU’s example and conclude ‘Everything But Arms’ agreements, as we have done with 49 of the poorest countries. We should also remember that the EU, in addition to being by far the biggest donor of development aid, buys, for example, 80% of Africa’s agricultural exports. In terms of its form, the meeting failed in its debate on the four Singapore issues. Why, when each individual country can opt to be absent with regard to these? Why, when it had been agreed at Doha that they would also be on the agenda? It was mainly a matter of the timetable. To what extent opposition to the liberalisation of the cotton trade was responsible for the meeting’s failure remains a mystery, but it certainly played a part. A large number of NGOs, as has been mentioned here, were happy the meeting failed. Let us hope that the underdeveloped countries will never again get caught by them as they were at Cancún. We have to move forward. The EU and the Commissioners negotiating on its behalf have nothing to hide or be ashamed of. The Commission did a good deal beforehand to ensure the success of the meeting, and furthermore used the room for negotiation it had during the meeting. The EU’s task must be on the one hand to endorse the WTO and speed up negotiations and on the other, and as a result, to further clarify to the underdeveloped countries the EU’s position regarding trade policy, as they still do not seem to know what it is.

Political group: PPE-DE
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted against Parliament’s report on the olive oil scheme. The report does not acknowledge that there has been extensive fraud involving the aid scheme for olive oil, and it is dismissive of the Commission’s proposed changes in the aid. At the moment, the EU provides aid per ton of olive oil. This form of aid requires the monitoring of actual production. Such monitoring has not operated at all satisfactorily. The Member States have not been anything like good enough at doing the monitoring. The Commission is proposing in the longer term to introduce aid-per-tree instead of per ton of olive oil. Such a form of aid requires the introduction of what is called a Geographical Information System so that the producers’ cultivation declarations can be monitored with the help of aerial photographs. The Commission proposes extending the present system by 2 years until such a system is in place. We support the Commission’s proposal and hope that the whole sector can be reformed, together with the rest of agricultural policy, during the Danish Presidency in 2 years’ time.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, I welcome Marco Polo in principle and in practice. Its predecessor, PACT, was very popular in the United Kingdom with both the public and the private sectors. I am sure Marco Polo will be even more popular in the United Kingdom. I should also like to thank the rapporteur for ensuring that Marco Polo will be even more business-friendly than PACT was. I agree with the Commissioner that is important that Marco Polo does not lose sight of its main objective, which is to encourage modal shift. Why must we do that? Firstly, because we must tackle pollution. Transport is the fastest-growing source of global warming gases in Europe. Secondly, we must tackle congestion. We must, for example, help switch high-volume, long-distance freight away from the road onto the railways where it belongs. Action is also clearly needed at EU level, not just at a national level. After all, only by encouraging the 15 railway companies to work together can some of the artificial national barriers to free movement be removed. Action is also needed to encourage greater use of our ports, seas and inland waterways. 40 per cent of freight already goes by sea. That is an area where we can – and because of Marco Polo will – see more growth. Marco Polo will make a difference there. Finally, and most importantly, let us not get carried away with our own rhetoric. Marco Polo is a positive move but, on its own, it is clearly nowhere near enough. The Group urges the Commissioner to encourage more actions like this and encourage the Member States themselves to take on board their own responsibilities to encourage modal shift in a much more dramatic and radical way than we have seen in the past.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, the amount of EUR 17.5 billion of EU membership funds will be used in the next few years on scientific activities through the framework programme. The size of this sum indicates how significant the matter in question now is. Codecision procedure removes power from the Commission and brings it to Parliament. In this matter it is particularly well-founded. There are good grounds to support Mr Caudron’s model on programme coordination and administration as well as informing and listening to Parliament in decision-making at levels more detailed than that of the framework programme. The primary research areas selected by the Commission are well-founded as are also Parliament’s complementary priorities, which are not all mere information technology and artificial intelligence. The health of a human being depends on what he eats. It is justified to use funds to research the whole of the food chain. The new biotechnology involves the ethical foundations of all kinds of life, and therefore technology must also be complemented by results from human sciences. Science must not be dependent on the ethics of big corporations, and that is why it must receive public funding. When the health of the environment depends greatly on energy production, several adjustments made by Parliament endeavour to improve the research into new forms of energy. It would be justified to direct more funds into the research of fusion energy than what the Commission is proposing. There is need to build a new Tokamak for the joint use of all Member States and Switzerland, Canada, Japan and Russia. When funding is cut, this important project is delayed, further delaying the opportunity to produce energy by fusion power, which even in the current circumstances is going to be postponed by as much as fifty years. When the framework programme was drawn up, not enough attention was paid to the activities of the Joint Research Centre of the EU. It will also use scientific resources. During the coming five-year period its position within the research community of the EU and its Member States must be clarified; research resources must not be wasted.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Madam President, I have conflicting feelings about this proposal for a regulation and this report. On the one hand, I feel I must make my rejection of this regulation clear, particularly with regard to hake, which suffers irrational and unjustifiable damage as a result of being treated together with cod. On the other hand, however, I believe that this will provide a valuable tool for calling into question the reform of the CFP, which was proposed by Commissioner Franz Fischler and presented by the Commission to the Council. The weakness of the Commission’s arguments becomes apparent simply from reading the Stihler report’s explanatory statement, particularly when the Commission attempts to base the regulation on supposedly reliable scientific studies. As the rapporteur points out, the proposal for measures was approved in 2001, on the basis of the information supplied by the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea, even before the drastic reductions of the TACs agreed for 2001 had been implemented. As the rapporteur points out, the scientific considerations are full of ambiguities and uncertainties. To quote from the text: ‘For hake, the decline in stocks has been less dramatic and therefore the scientific evidence is less clear cut and indeed the subject of some dispute’. I continue: 'Disagreement occurs over whether the two species [hake and cod] should be treated together, the speed at which recovery should be attempted and hence the severity of the measures necessary and what precisely those measures should be.’ etc. The report highlights, furthermore and above all, the impact and the economic effects that have not been addressed in the draft regulation. These, Madam President, are the many consequences that will occur or which are already occurring, in a sector which will become much more crucial and dangerous as a result of the unfair and irrational Fischler reform of the common fisheries policy.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, what we should do, this evening especially, is to enable the remarkable report by Mrs Roth-Behrendt to be implemented as quickly as possible, in other words, to enable the measures to take effect from July. On the basis of scientific knowledge, which is increasing every day, I do believe that the two amendments that have been proposed to us are ambiguous and are more likely to slow down the implementation of these measures than to have a positive impact. My group, the Group of the , could conceivably support the first amendment, because classifying countries according to the number of suspected cases is a good approach and because the most crucial task is, above all, to monitor the infectious disease. Whether or not the countries that feel most vulnerable want to protect themselves, this is not necessarily a form of neo-protectionism. On the other hand, Amendment No 2 seems to be slightly excessive, seeking, on the pretext that animals under 24 months do not pose exactly the same problems as other animals, to eliminate the systematic use of rapid screening tests and to allow other countries, particularly Great Britain – the country that initiated this and the most affected – not to carry out systematic screening. If that is the intention behind the amendment, we in the Group of the are totally opposed to it. Since this debate is evolving continually, I will add that, as Mrs Doyle has just said, we are asking ourselves questions about Canada or the United States. No country is today able to say that it is free from BSE or TSE and, more importantly, we should now have screening for sheep, since it is obvious today that the disease was definitely spread from them and that it is better to monitor this type of livestock, which can also pose the same problems that we have had with cattle.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I wish to make five brief observations. The first is to thank all of those who worked so hard to achieve this final outcome: the specialists and technical experts whom we invited and those who wrote and e-mailed us with their studies and opinions, the coordinators of the political groups and the Members of the European Parliament, the staff of our committee, who provided high quality support for our work and the rapporteur, Gerhard Schmid, who has produced an outstanding report and provided evidence once again of his great qualities as a human being and as a politician. It was an easy task to chair this committee with this kind of rapporteur. Secondly, Echelon exists, whether under this name or any other. The European Parliament should be in no doubt about this. Thirdly, Echelon runs a risk, a serious risk of its network being abused. This is a commercial risk, which compromises the concept of fair trade, but also presents a risk for civil liberties. The same Union that proclaimed the Charter of Fundamental Rights and which I hope will make it binding cannot be negligent in this matter. Fourthly, we must improve the relationship between the European Union and the United States. We must be more effective. In our mission to the United States, we were well received by Congress but met with the hostility of the Administration. The report contains various important recommendations. Europe and the United States must cooperate fairly – and I mean fairly – for the sake of the common values that they most definitely share. Lastly, 44 recommendations have been tabled. Giving the lie to those who predicted that the committee would not produce anything tangible, we are making 44 recommendations to the House. I must emphasise the need to strengthen the European Convention on Human Rights with regard to protecting privacy in the information society, the need for Parliamentary and judicial control over the activity of the secret services, the need to extend defence practices such as the use of cryptography and electronic signatures, and the need for the European Institutions themselves to set an example by using these technologies. Lastly, the request is made to the Union’s Member States to ensure in the future that the use of their countries by information gathering services, whether their own or of third countries, respects the European Convention on Human Rights.

Political group: PPE-DE
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we are in the middle of an extremely unusual debate. With good reason, with very good reason, this Chamber is expressing wide support for the International Criminal Court and widely condemns the stance of the United States, which wants to nip the International Criminal Court in the bud. This was most recently illustrated by the very harsh words in the national security plan that is being presented this week. Unfortunately, as Mr Møller already indicated, this topic is no longer being debated outside of this Chamber. The Council is working on a compromise. The question is no longer whether exceptions should be made, but how far they go for the United States. With this, a horrible dilemma is being created for Parliament and for anyone who is kindly disposed towards the International Criminal Court, for the choices are: either no compromise, and this translates into a divided Europe and continuous opposition by the United States, or opting for damage limitation, for example, by restricting the exception to soldiers with peace missions. This would result in a united Europe, an end to US opposition and quite possibly the withdrawal of this diabolical The Hague Invasion Act. These are the true choices we are facing, whether we like them or not. This raises the vital question – and I would at the same time make an appeal to Mr Møller, as President-in-Office of the Council – whether this compromise undermines the International Criminal Court permanently and structurally. This is where my group draws the line. And I would urge Mr Möller to draw the line there in respect of the Council's willingness to strike a compromise.

Political group: Verts-ALE
This Resolution assumes the need to refocus the Lisbon Strategy in order to ensure that the Member States and candidate countries attain their objectives by 2010 and I support this assumption. Although progress has been made in job creation and in reducing unemployment, the progress of this Strategy has nevertheless been extremely slow. The efforts of all Member States and the EU must therefore focus on four priority objectives. First: to increase employment growth and social cohesion by supporting the revised European Employment Strategy, by creating a Task Force for employment, and by reforming pensions. Second: to stimulate the promotion of innovation and the entrepreneurial spirit, facilitating the creation of innovative companies, increasing investment in these areas and not overlooking the fundamental role of the SMEs in creating employment. Third: to work on interconnection in Europe and on deepening the internal market by removing all barriers to its improvement. Fourth: to guarantee environmental protection associated with job creation, by investing in clean technologies and by launching environmental actions. Although we are going through a period of economic stagnation and of policy uncertainties, we cannot allow these priorities to be overlooked. (Explanation of vote abbreviated in accordance with Rule 137(1) of the Rules of Procedure)

Political group: PPE-DE
It would be difficult not to give one’s full and entire support to this new version of Directive 76/207/EC on the implementation of the principle of equal treatment for men and women in all areas of employment including vocational training. Among the many reasons for that support, there are three which are particularly crucial and essential as far as I am concerned. The first of these is that this text, for the first time at Community level, contains a definition of ‘sexual harassment’, which is defined as a situation “where any form of unwanted verbal, non-verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature occurs with the purpose or effect of violating the dignity of a person, in particular when creating an intimidating, hostile, humiliating or offensive environment”. This directive also defines ‘direct discrimination’, ‘indirect discrimination’ and ‘harassment’. The second reason is the fact that this new directive prohibits discrimination against women on the grounds of pregnancy or maternity leave, and lays down the entitlement to return to the same job or an equivalent position at the end of maternity leave, or paternity or adoption leave, when those rights are recognised by Member States. (Explanation of vote cut short pursuant to Rule 137(1) of the Rules of Procedure)

Political group: PSE