GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank Mrs Oomen-Ruijten for highlighting the situation faced by frontier workers in an own-initiative report from Parliament. Many and varied are the situations and problems that we continue to encounter in the European internal market, one of the key aspects of which is the freedom of movement of frontier workers. These are problems which cause the people to question the raison d’être of the European Union. Being an MEP in a region bordering Luxembourg, Belgium and France I can identify with all the facets of these issues. Why is a German pensioner, who is undergoing dialysis, only permitted to have access to this for a limited period of time when holidaying in France? The mother of a family in Germany is immediately entitled to child benefit for her second child, but not if her husband works in Luxembourg. Is it permissible for an aunt who is insured in Belgium to be cared for in a nursing home near her family in Germany? Pension entitlements acquired in Italy are subject to enormous outlay before they reach the German pensioner. And why should an honorary mayor working in Germany suddenly have to pay tax on his whole salary, which he earns in Luxembourg, because he receives an expenses allowance? Luxembourg firms are fighting against additional expenditure and additional costs, and so jobs are at risk. This is why people decline the office of mayor. The list goes on. Frontier workers must be flexible, so as to be able to cope with the confusion of laws on both sides of the borders. Those who look for a job over the border within the European internal market need legal certainty in a united Europe, particularly in the sphere of social legislation. We MEPs from the border regions in the European Union call upon the Commission and the Council, to provide for more cross-border social justice. We have achieved a great deal, but there is still much to be done. The report by Mrs Oomen-Ruijten illustrates the legitimate demands of the people in the border regions. The internal market must also be completed within the labour market if we want to make Europe an integrated whole.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, on 3 July, we asked the Council for immediate action to address the highly worrying situation of a large group of opponents of Mr Obiang’s regime in Equatorial Guinea. At that time we asked for an appeal to be made, for pressure to be exerted. Two days later, on 5 July, to be precise, one of those convicted in the judgment that incarcerated dozens of opponents in Black Beach, Juan Ondó Nguema, died as a result of the maltreatment he suffered, and due to water and sleep deprivation during the last days of his life. Mr President, I know that the world is often cruel and that, of course, neither Europe nor the Council can solve all of its problems or shoulder all of its tragedies. This, however, was a very specific, localised problem. A few days ago, another opponent died, and we ask again, insistently, Mr President, that the Council please do something immediately to solve this problem and remove the threat hanging over a few, very specific people.

Political group: PSE
The report acknowledges the dramatic fall in the number of seafarers in the ΕU and the shortage of properly trained men and officers. You only have to remember that the number of seafarers in the European Union has fallen from 320 000 in 1978 to 120 000 today to agree that the seafaring manpower of the Member States of the European Union has been totally decimated. The report ascribes this state of affairs to secondary causes and avoids tackling the root cause of the problem. The cause of this decimation is the European Union's very own maritime policy, which is predicated on the good old competitiveness of the shipping companies' fleets and benefits the shipping industry, with painful consequences for seafarers' families. For the sake of this competitiveness, the European Union's common maritime policy has recognised flags of convenience since as early as the mid 1980s, resulting in sweeping changes at the expense of seafarers and obscene profits for big business. The shipping industry uses current legislation and the EU's proposals to exploit seafaring labour from third countries and seafarers from within the European Union by paying lower wages and offering lower social benefits, thereby undermining the fundamental rights of workers (collective agreements, 7-hour day, contracts of employment, time off during the year etc.). Falling standards in training and further training, which have wiped out the fund of know-how which used to exist, are the result of the EU's own policy, which has pushed for diplomas to be changed to certificates of ability to exercise the profession of seafarer and for professional diplomas to be abolished. The report makes no reference whatsoever to these serious problems; it merely regurgitates the usual wish-lists or, worse, proposes applying the good old sub-standard, fragmented training programmes, which are tailored to the needs of the shipping market, and networking educational institutions and companies. Objectively-speaking, this sort of assessment and proposals such as these ally public concerns about the huge social problem of unemployment, accidents at sea (crimes at sea, to use the words of seafarers) and ecological disasters, while concealing the liability of shipowners and their political puppets. In our opinion, if seafarers step up their fight at national and international level, if seafarers join forces with seafarers from third countries and overturn these policies under the banner of 'an equal day's pay for an equal day's work', if seafarers are recruited subject to vested insurance rights, collective agreements and compulsory national insurance and if state education and training for seafarers is brought up to standard (for example by upgrading state-run naval schools), this will go a long way towards resolving the problems of the training and recruitment of seafarers. This sort of policy would guarantee that the needs of contemporary seafarers' families are met, as well as guaranteeing safety at sea and environmental protection. It is for these reasons that the MEPs of the Communist Party of Greece intend to vote against the report.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, because of the availability of high-technology additives in the feedingstuffs industry, detailed information on their use is needed from the actors, and as we know there are a lot of them, so that we can put a stop to practices which infringe Community law. This directive on additives in feedingstuffs cannot achieve this on its own. Other directives will follow and I believe that the Committee on Agriculture is well placed to deal with them. Up the point at which meat, milk, bread and other products are sold over the shop counter, feedingstuffs and additives are structured, mixed, blended, cut and transported several times. The fight by feedingstuff manufacturers to gain maximum market shares causes a lot of problems, just as it does in the foodstuffs industry. The negative consequences are well known, the positive ones less so. I am firmly convinced that the most sensible way of protecting the health of European citizens in the ecological chain is through the production of feedingstuffs in the region for the region. However, more work is needed on this.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Commissioner, I should just like to ask you if the same phenomenon applies to other products, i.e. if there are coding systems for other products, because the culture industry is extremely sensitive, there is huge competition from America, which we are unable to withstand, as we know all too well. But I know that you are sensitive to the question of competition and I am sure that your investigation will bring in results.

Political group: PSE
Like my group, I voted in favour of the motion for a resolution on structurally disadvantaged regions. The enlargement of the ΕU with 10 new members and the stagnation of the Community budget at the same levels are giving rise to serious concerns about Union action in island regions, mountain regions and regions with a low population density in the Union. It is important to maintain and strengthen ‘cohesion policy’ and not to create a programming and financing split and inconsistency. The political principle of ‘solidarity’ must be fully respected in order to reduce the structural disadvantages of these regions. The facility to increase funding to disadvantaged regions, depending on the extent of their handicaps, is particularly important. Finally, I wish to emphasise the urgent need to stop soil erosion in island areas, such as the Aegean, with an extensive drywall network conservation programme.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, I wish to thank the Commissioner for his answer. I would like to say that it is nevertheless true that certain kinds of markets and opportunities are opening up here for development cooperation organisations. In my opinion that is a very good thing, as they can use their know-how in this area. I would therefore like to ask whether the Commission has any intention of marketing this opportunity and this idea to development cooperation organisations, for example, by training them to become CDM project coordinators. I would also like to ask what sort of possibilities you see here for bringing together companies and organisations to make collaborations constructive and advantageous for both sides.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, the line which prevailed in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, thanks, in particular, to the excellent work of our rapporteur, reiterates the need for the particularly rigorous traceability and labelling system proposed by the Commission. The Union’s primary duty is to guarantee maximum security at all the different stages in the production and distribution chain and provide accurate information on the foodstuffs placed on the market. It is then up to the consumer to choose whether or not to buy genetically modified food. However, this freedom of choice presupposes a rigorous, unambiguous labelling system which informs the consumer whether products contain genetically modified organisms, whether they are composed of genetically modified organisms, and also whether they have been derived from GMOs or whether GMOs have been used as processing aids. The European People’s Party’s attempt to repropose in plenary the line already overthrown in the Environment Committee must be firmly rejected. Indeed, just labelling foods or feedingstuffs in which tests have revealed the presence of modified DNA or protein, overthrowing the Commission’s line, would be paving the way for a sort of colonisation of the European agrifoods system. We are not just talking about the potential health risk or the principle of transparency towards consumers: we are also and, perhaps, above all, talking about the safeguarding of conventional and organic food production. This might seem an exaggeration, but tomorrow’s vote is important for European citizens: on the one hand, we can and must do something to banish their feeling of insecurity, and, on the other, we can and must reinforce the ideal of the Europe of diversities, which can do so much to further its quest for unity.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, I echo the thanks of others to the rapporteur, the Commission and the Council for bringing this forward and recognising the need for further cooperation in this field, a very difficult area. I disagree, to an extent, with Mr Krarup, in that this is an issue that no one country can address on its own. It is vital that there are common policies, agreements and understandings between the 15 Member States. Having said that, we recognise the different situations in each Member State. Mrs Terrón i Cusí spoke earlier about the situation on the southern border of Spain. My own country, the United Kingdom, consists of one large island plus the north of Ireland. Other countries each have their own circumstances that need to be addressed: Greece, for example, has some 400 islands, and Luxembourg is land-locked. We all have very different situations and, in their own ways, these are very difficult to monitor and manage. But we do not manage very well with 15 countries at the moment. Mr Coelho quite rightly drew attention to the fact that when we are 25 countries in the EU – and later on 27 or 28 – it will be even more challenging. It is very important that we at least make the effort to get into position now something that is trying to address the issue, trying to face up to the challenge. We must make certain that we respect the rights of the individual. I agree with Mr Krarup on that. We can only do this if Member States work together, if we copy good practice from one country to another, if we do not repeat the mistakes that have been made in the past. Effectively, this means border management, hand-in-hand with common policies on asylum and immigration. It means being prepared to constantly update and upgrade, and it means border management which takes account of citizens' rights of movement. If we put those together we will address the issues for the years ahead in an enlarged European Union.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, I shall not dwell at length on the impact of this Charter at the various levels. Within Europe, the European citizen knows that Europe is now not just an economic entity; within the candidate countries, no country will be able to aspire to join the European Union without ensuring that its national legal system adheres to the principles of the Charter; and finally, on the world scale, this is the message sent out by Europe. There are, however, other effects, particularly on our internal legal system. I shall, of course, add my voice to those of the men and women wishing to include a reference to the Charter in Article 6, and to actually incorporate the Charter itself into the Treaties at a later date. Indeed, how is it possible for a single moment to think that Parliament’s adopting the Charter will not have any legal implications? Traditionally, the national parliaments are the guardians of public freedoms, yet here we have a rather unusual method because in parliamentary law, there is no legislation by proclamation. We shall shortly be officially adopting this Charter as formally as possible and, I would hope, with the largest possible majority, and there will be any number of courts to draw conclusions from it even if it is not incorporated into the Treaties in the immediate future. There is yet another effect it will have, and this is on our own working methods. Let me give you an example of this. My fellow members on the Committee on Citizens’ Freedoms, and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs did me the honour of appointing me rapporteur on the issue of respect for human rights within the Europe Union. I have, of course, to take the ‘pre-’ and ‘post-’ Charter situations into account. Once adopted by this House, the Charter of Fundamental Rights will serve as a benchmark for my report and, as far as I can with my own personal and intellectual resources and those of the people assisting me, I shall carry out an evaluation, right by right and country by country, of the extent to which the Charter is respected in the fifteen countries of the European Union. We, the Members of the European Parliament, are accountable for the regulations that we adopt with a philosophy which must not be that of zero infringement of human rights. We need not be naively optimistic, we shall surely find instances of human rights violations, but collectively we have a duty to ensure that it is possible to bring a legal case against such infringements, that there is a suitable court to prosecute such crimes, and a public administrative body to investigate them and prevent them recurring. This, in any case, will be the your rapporteur’s working philosophy, ladies and gentlemen, once we have adopted, as we are shortly about to do, the Charter of Fundamental Rights.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it is hardly necessary to talk about the importance of forests to the European Union, in light of the fact that they occupy 40% of our territory and that they provide two and a half million jobs, not to mention their importance to the environment, as the Kyoto protocol recently acknowledged. It is therefore hard to understand why this Commission proposal excludes the cofinancing of measures to prevent forest fires, measures that were previously funded under Regulation 2158/92. The southern parts of the European Union are at greatest risk of desertification, as various speakers have already said, due to their hot, arid climate, which is extremely propitious to fires. Therefore, if we wish seriously to preserve the forests of southern Europe, we will have to provide for the funding of fire prevention measures. Unless the Council adopts Parliament’s amendments to achieve this, the countries of southern Europe will not have the means to continue the actions they have embarked on to prevent forest fires, actions which, by their very nature, cannot be separated from monitoring actions provided for, incidentally, in the regulation. Unless forests are protected from fires, there is no point in talking about biodiversity, because when fires occur, they burn down everything. Neither plants nor animals survive. Tens of thousands of hectares burn down every year in Portugal and in other Mediterranean countries. Parliament has been sensitive to this scourge and has therefore proposed - and I hope will adopt – the amendments presented to us by Mrs Redondo Jiménez. Unless the Council is able to understand this, doubts will remain as to its ability to understand the reality of the situation of Europe’s forests. I thank and congratulate Mrs Redondo Jiménez, who has guided us through this matter extremely ably, with great skill and tenacity.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, my Group very much welcomes this report. The proposal is important because improving the conditions and criteria under which passengers should be reimbursed and assisted in the event of being denied boarding, cancellation or long delays is something that must be welcomed. We must also take account of cases of cancellation or long delays due to valid technical reasons for safety. We do not want to create a situation where airlines will decide to fly regardless of what the outcome will be. Nevertheless there have been many cases where passengers have been denied boarding because of overbooking – something which many in this Parliament will have experienced regarding some airlines in Europe – and people have been left high and dry, whether it be in Brussels or somewhere else. A constituent of mine bought a flight online with the notorious Ryanair but when they went to collect the ticket they were denied access because they had an international student ID card and were refused boarding on the grounds that it was out of date. So they used a national student ID card which was valid but this was refused. So there is a major problem of what actually constitutes acceptable ID. This person paid quite a lot of money for the ticket; it was not one of those tickets costing a couple of euro, it was quite expensive. So how much are airlines making on this? Another constituent got as far as London where he was then refused boarding on a continuing flight out of London to Europe. Airlines need to take responsibility for their passengers. They cannot be allowed to get away with treating passengers like this any longer.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, may I make a request? I would like an investigation into whether, during the vote on the van Hulten report, it was noted by Mr Ferber and recorded in the Minutes, that a Member was not present, which that Member subsequently confirmed. Is he entitled to call for a subsequent correction of the vote, which did not take place in the Chamber, which the Minutes indicate that he did?

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, three or four days ago, the Italian police handed over an Iraqi family to the liberal democrat government of Syria. The head of the family had been condemned to death 20 years ago for belonging to the organisation known as Muslim Brothers. We fear that the sentence might already have been carried out in Syria. This family was held at Malpensa airport for five days, was not allowed to have any contact with any other people and was then sent back to Syria without being informed of their right to apply for asylum. I call upon the European Parliament and its President to ask for more detailed information from the Italian Government.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it has emerged that railway companies are now competing with the cheap tickets offered by the airlines. How do you intend to proceed with regard to the state aid that is currently being paid to the railways? Will restrictions on the options apply here as well? In Austria, for example, 7% of the budget is spent on the railways. That amounts to around EUR 500 per citizen in subsidies to the railways, which are now competing directly with the privately-owned low-cost airlines. This means that there is unfair competition between the cheap tickets offered by the airlines and those offered by the railways. I would be very pleased if you took similar action against the railways.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, I think that we have already heard much about the opportunities and possibilities which the Socrates programme will offer us over the next seven years. I do not believe, however, that we have fully discharged our responsibilities here for the near future. Precisely the opposite is true. Now the countries, but also the European Union, are asked to implement this programme so that we can see, above all, how it develops over the next two to two and a half years and so that we can make adjustments to it and alter or reassess various aspects where it proves to be necessary. I am convinced that it provides an opportunity for young people in Europe and that it is proof that Europe must not only be a Europe of figures and economics, but that education and culture actually form the foundation stone on the basis of which we understand each other and regions – as diverse as their cultures are – complement each other and are tolerant of any differences between them. In turn, this teaches us to show solidarity with people who are different, who are less well-off and who, above all, have a harder time of it than we do. I should like to call on all those who have the opportunity to take advantage of the Socrates programme, who are able to use educational opportunities, who are going to be able to continue their education in the future, who contribute to Europe growing together, also to recognise in the course of their education that we are setting a fast pace at the moment in our process of development and in all our programmes, that there are those who cannot match this pace, and that we should take them by the hand and take them with us because quality, standards and education also require us not to sideline those who are weaker than ourselves.

Political group: PSE
This report endeavours to rationalise the work of the European Parliament in the run up to the enlargement of the ΕU, inter alia by reinforcing the role of parliamentary committees and reducing the work of plenary. Although the report contains a number of good ideas, it also contains proposals which are particularly worrying, such as: - increasing the powers of the President, who will be allowed to give the floor to those who catch his eye, without abiding by any rules, or decide on the admissibility of questions or amendments, which could well lead to high-handedness; - the need for groups to represent one-fifth of the Member States, thereby discouraging convergence in the European parliamentary area; - restricting the use of all languages in all the work of the European Parliament, irrespective, including representations and so on.

Political group: GUE-NGL