GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Mr President, I would like to join all those who have thanked the rapporteur here. He could actually be called Mr Producer Responsibility, as this was the second historical directive, the second historical achievement, in which the producer’s responsibility will be significantly incorporated in the European Union’s environment and product legislation. In this way we are also moving towards a new phase in environmental policy, which is one of already taking account of the demands of the environment at the product design stage. I have found that, as a result of this directive, large companies are now discussing how, for example, GSM telephones could be lighter - although they are certainly light already - how they could be easier to dismantle, and how all the harmful substances could be removed and then responsibly sent off as treatable waste. I would like to return to these harmful, hazardous substances. Our group would have liked to see rather more determined action to try to get rid of especially hazardous chemical substances. I will mention one example. Much has been said about product safety, which is a very important issue, and fire safety particularly so. There has been discussion on whether halogenated flame retardants should be banned in future. In our opinion, it is quite obvious that they are toxic, as they have, for example, led to a situation where mother’s milk contains double the amount of these halogenated chromium compounds every five years. There are alternatives to them, and we would like to see them banned more quickly and companies in this way being encouraged to start using harmless alternatives without, however, compromises being made with regard to product safety.

Political group: Verts-ALE
draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy. – Mr President, by and large the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy goes along with the Commission proposal and the amendments of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism. We had three proposed amendments. Two of them are largely accepted in Mr Piecyk's report. One concerned the question of ice-breaking ships carrying fuel in the Baltic. The other was the question of the 600 to 5 000 tonne tankers which we were concerned would not be available. We wanted a five-year waiting period to 2008. The period will be more or less five years so we will go along with that. We were surprised at this figure of 25.7 API that was pulled out for the definition of heavy crude oil. The generally recognised international level between intermediate and heavy is 22 API. We cannot understand why that, as we proposed, was not an acceptable level. I understand the Council has also gone for this figure of 25.7, which will probably cause certain troubles, especially in the North Sea oil fields. Be that as it may. Having said that, this will not avoid the next spillage of oil. Until we can get the IMO on board with these sorts of standards we will still get Prestiges leaving a non-EU port, plying past the EU to a non-EU port with a non-EU flag. Those are the problems we have to face. We really must get the IMO to come to terms with these standards. Also, we must have a scheme to help with the transition from the single-hulled tankers to the double-hulled, especially in the 600 to 5 000 tonne level. A scrapping and building assistance system must be set up.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, representing, as I do, a constituency which is associated with such products as Scotch whisky, Highland shortbread and Borders knitwear, I am fully aware of and sensitive to the points many have made about the evils of counterfeiting and piracy, which extend much more widely than just to products of the kind I have mentioned. I, therefore, strongly support the idea of introducing a directive of this kind. However, I do not agree entirely with Mr Byrne when he claims that a balance has been struck. That is not what we hear from the Generic Medicines Association, which is very fearful that extension of this set of remedies to patent law will damage its interests and thus the interests of the health services of Europe and beyond. A balance has not been struck. Patents must be excluded, and the point about the commercial scale must be extended to the whole of the directive, not just to some parts of it. Finally, I say with great personal sympathy for Mrs Fourtou that this case shows up a gap in our rules about declaration of interests. The issue of familial interests needs to be included. I say that without any personal discourtesy.

Political group: Verts-ALE
While not able to endorse every dot and comma of this report, I support its broad thrust. If we are to make a success of enlargement a number of key reforms are essential. A Union unable to make decisions would not serve the purpose of existing or applicant states. Therefore, we must increase the use of qualified majority voting in the Council in order to avoid paralysis in decision taking, we must limit the number of Commissioners so that the Union's executive remains efficient and we must limit the number of MEPs to 700 to enable Parliament to function effectively. We must continue to improve the Community's capacity for external action and further democratise key areas of the Union's activities.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, the Commission has emphasised in its communication that enlargement of the European Union will be the core challenge of 2004. Whilst the importance of this issue is not to be denied, I do, however, have my doubts as to whether these Budget lines will actually enable the Commission to handle these challenges. My real concern is with the fact that, in connection with enlargement, provision has been made for expenditure of some EUR 11 billion in 2004, which amounts to only 10% of the total commitment appropriations. In agricultural expenditure, the proportion is as low as 2.4%. These proportions are hardly likely to guarantee the Member States participation on an equal basis, even when it is borne in mind that accession will happen as late as 1 May, so what I expect of the Commission is that they should set out in detail in the preliminary draft Budget what legal entitlements the new Member States will have to participation in all programmes funded from the EU Budget. Funds for the structural measures are very extensive – for this too, sensible advance plans were made in former years – but what is not working is the outflow of resources. What I expect is that the Commission will not delay long in producing precise figures and an analysis of why this is so and of the obstructions involved. There is a need here for greater confidence in the system's fairness, for not one euro of structural support funding must be wasted. For many citizens in the European Union's regions, the projects that depend on such funds are often the last fragile hope for the maintenance of their jobs. Now, today, the starting pistol has been fired, and the process of drawing up the preliminary draft of the 2004 general Budget can begin; there are important debates before us, and important work remains to be done. I therefore expect absolute transparency of the whole procedure, coupled with wide-ranging public relations work, which cannot fail to improve the public's perception of the European Union.

Political group: GUE-NGL
The Danish and Swedish Social Democrats have today voted in favour of the report by Mr Andrew Nicholas Duff and Mr Johannes Voggenhuber regarding drawing up a European Union Charter of Fundamental Rights. We are in favour of the drawing up of a Charter of Fundamental Rights in the form of a political document. In this period of reforms of the EU, including its enlargement, it is important to focus upon the fact that the EU’s raison d’être is to protect individual citizens. A Charter could make a positive contribution to this. In drawing up a Charter of Fundamental Rights, there is always a certain danger of citizens’ viewing it simply as a meaningless piece of paper, to be waved on state occasions but destined to disappoint. A majority of the European Parliament is therefore calling for the Charter to be of binding effect and to be incorporated into the Treaty, in other words for the agenda of the current Intergovernmental Conference to be extended. In connection with previous votes on this subject, we have clearly expressed our view that there should be no more issues on the agenda than it will be possible to resolve at the Nice Summit in December. We have already emphasised that no more obstacles should be put in the way of enlargement of the Union. Drawing up a set of binding, fundamental rights would raise a series of very difficult questions of principle, in terms both of the content of these rights and of their relationship to other sets of fundamental rights, for example the European Convention on Human Rights. It is therefore unrealistic to expect the issues to have been resolved by December. For that reason alone, we do not think that fundamental rights should be on the agenda of the current Intergovernmental Conference. We have made this known in the individual votes en route to the report. If we nonetheless choose to vote in favour of the whole report, that is because we believe that fundamental human rights are one of the foundations upon which the EU is built and because we want a Charter concerning these to be drawn up in the form of a political document. Whether it is subsequently to be incorporated into the Treaty in a form that is binding will depend upon an assessment of whether the content of the Charter would provide citizens with better protection than that which they have at present.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, Mr Evans has just referred to yesterday morning’s vote, specifically to the vote at which certain amendments were adopted by a majority of one. I believe it is as well for Parliament to keep to the current Rules because, as another Member rightly said, very often it is not the machines that did not work but the Members that forgot to vote; if we were able to correct a vote after the event, we would never see the end of it. We had a good example in the final vote on Mr Evans’ report. If I had known that the total number of abstentions and votes against was going to be greater than the number of votes in favour of Mr Evans’ report, I would have asked my Group to vote against that report and it would not have been adopted. So you can see how absurd the situation would become if a vote could be reconsidered, and I think we would be well advised to go on abiding by our Rules as they stand.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, the main problem with the Commission's proposal is that local public transport is subordinated to the objective of 'free competition' alone. Some in this House may well welcome this, but I consider it a fundamental error. It is the objectives of transport policy that local public transport must primarily serve. It is also a European issue, how can the local public transport service improve the mobility of all citizens, including those who, not being car-owners, have no alternative to it, schoolchildren, large families, pensioners, disabled people, people on limited incomes? Ensuring sustainable basic mobility in accordance with town and country planning is therefore the prime objective for local public transport. Specific local situations mean that this can be achieved in a wide variety of ways. So, to this day, I cannot understand why the Commission chose to do this by means of a regulation without considering the possibilities afforded by a directive, as this is a typical case where the subsidiarity principle applies. I also wonder how it is that the Commission is also choosing the form of the regulation, at the same time as bringing out the White Paper on European governance. According to this White Paper, it wants to reinforce local autonomy, and here it is interfering. Hence the question as to how such a regulation can make real the principle of reinforced local autonomy in European governance? Let me finally return to the offering of contracts for tender. Of course contracts must be put out to tender. But the process must highlight firstly transport policy, secondly environmental policy and thirdly social policy, which should lead to optimised mobility for our electorate.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, I wish to say that it is indeed infuriating that the Council is absent from a debate such as this, especially when the European Parliament had already given the Council advance warning during the previous Plenary. It would be good if the Commission and the Council were to pay attention when the European Parliament gives advance warning, especially on such important issues. Perhaps the Council's only justification for not being here would be if its President-in-Office were locked away somewhere reading the Amnesty International report for 2003, which tells us that the big threat to rights today are the measures being taken by the United States at global level on the pretext of 11 September in the aim of undermining and withdrawing citizens' democratic and other rights. The case we are examining now in connection with the agreements on judicial cooperation and extradition is an export from the United States of restrictions on rights, notably on the question of the death penalty. The United States are exporting them to us and we, with no shame whatsoever and, unfortunately, with a Greek Presidency, are importing them under these agreements. I should like to ask Commissioner Vitorino to give us his opinion. Commissioner, as long as you are here and are not yet Secretary General of ΝΑΤΟ, why in your opinion in Article 13, which refers to the question of a request for a person who may face the death penalty to be extradited, does the agreement read: ‘the request for extradition may be denied’ by the European Union to the United States of America rather than ‘will be denied’? Why? Please explain it to us in terms we can understand.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, under the Constitution the present European Union will be abolished and in its place a new one will be established, which, according to the Constitution, reflects the will of the people and states. We know how to discover the will of states. It is represented by governments and national parliaments. The will of the people is not always the same as the will of states, and, to learn what it is, there is no alternative but to have a referendum. The fairest course of action would be to arrange one in each Member State separately but on the same day. If the subject of a referendum were the Convention’s draft Constitution without any amendments to it, I would vote against it and I would urge others to vote the same way. The reason is that the Convention worked undemocratically. It had a Praesidium, a Politburo-style dictatorship, and the Convention did not vote on the more than 6 000 proposed amendments made by its members or the final outcome. The Convention brought about a redistribution of power that favoured the big countries and the Union was militarised. The Member States lose their right to a permanent Commissioner with voting rights, and in future will not be able to choose their own Commissioner. All candidate Commissioners must be committed to the Europe issue, but what is this Europe issue? It is the issue of federalism. The EU is to be made into a federation, and on the last night the Convention, acting against the mandate for a Constitution presented at the Thessaloniki Summit, even adopted the symbols of a federation, with its own flag, anthem and national day. Under the Constitution the EU will become militarised. That means a new type of military structural cooperation and a declaration under the Constitution that Member States will give each other collective defence guarantees. A commander in the Finnish army said that acceptance of this declaration would take Finland into NATO, and that is something our nation will not agree to. These are the reasons for saying no to such a constitution.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in making out that it is a champion of human rights, the European Union tailors them to its needs. It has no problem, for example, defending the rights of homosexuals, but has nothing to say about the right to a job, to health care, to an education, to culture or to sport. At the same time, it systematically encourages existing democratic rights to be undermined or abolished, using terrorism and illegal immigration as its pretext. The European Union’s version of human rights is set out in the so-called Charter of Fundamental Rights which the Communist Party of Greece has denounced as inadequate and misleading. The report measures human rights against this charter, which is why there is not the slightest reference to the slavery introduced with new forms of work and to the decimation and commercialisation of social benefits. It has no objection to the plethora of new terrorist laws and it ignores the personal electronic files kept by the Schengen system and the fact that ideas which upset the system are passed over, distorted or even expelled and persecuted. The good thing about the report, however, is that it identifies a whole series of infringements, such as the torture of prisoners, trafficking in human beings and the suppression of rights in Genoa. Another good thing is that it calls for church and state to be separated, criticises child labour, highlights the adverse impact of measures to combat terrorism and asylum and immigration laws and discusses the social emancipation of women. Neither the situation on the ground nor the report, however, are of any benefit to the European Union and improvements will only come about if the grass-roots movement steps up its fight.

Political group: GUE-NGL
First, Mr President, warmest congratulations on your election. I just want to make a technical announcement before we start voting. There has been a general breakdown in the computer network and it lasted five minutes due to defective hardware. The problem has been identified and is being solved and the good news is that the system is now working. Do not panic: the right people are on the job and hopefully we will have no more problems.

Political group: PPE-DE
Here is a very pragmatic suggestion, Mr President. Since the Group of the and the Union for Europe of the Nations Group are relinquishing their participation in the vote on the great report, I would suggest that you have a block vote, which will save time. (Applause from the left and from the centre)

Political group: GUE-NGL
Madam President, I too am pleased that the negotiations have culminated in an agreement, and I believe that it is indeed positive that another evaluation is planned in two years’ time to check whether we have actually promoted what we set out to promote. I am particularly pleased with the compensation for training, the code of conduct for young players and the solidarity fund. I have a question regarding the latter. The Commissioner says in that connection that she hopes that this will benefit the smaller clubs. I would like to find out what guarantees are being built in so that the solidarity fund will actually benefit the smaller clubs and the training clubs, and can actually contribute to the social function of the sport. I am thinking of the composition and criteria for allocating funding, for example. Is anything known about this yet?

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, Commissioner, I am taking up this position on behalf of the Home Affairs Committee – we may well have the lowest outgoings in terms of the EU's overall expenditure, but, on the other hand, we have, since 11 September, been working in an area that should have a very important role to play. It is for this reason that I am very happy that both rapporteurs were very frank and that Mr Färm ended up by accepting our proposals and taking them on board. This also shows that, after 11 September, we are dealing with concepts such as the combating and prevention of terrorism in such a way that we are taking this matter very seriously and are making our readiness clear to strengthen our own European authorities in this field such as Europol and Eurojust, and our will to be successful through them in this area. My Committee saw as a second important point the theme of enlargement and the important issue of how we deal with borders in the first place. This was not just through a desire to reinforce borders. Of course, we do not want people to die at them – the Home Affairs Committee is very sensitive in matters concerning the combating of illegal immigration, and looks closely at what is actually achieved in this area and how effective is the form that the measures take. On that, there are naturally certain things that we expect of 2003. Yet, despite counter-terrorism and police efforts on the one hand and action taken by border guards on the other, there is one thing we do not want to forget under any circumstances, that, in a democracy consisting of 15 states, soon indeed to be 25, in the European Union, we also have an obligation to the people who travel to the European Union and live together with us. This has led us to make a number of proposals relating to integration policy. I am very grateful to my colleagues on the Committee on Budgets for their willingness to accept these proposals.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, I am very happy with Commissioner Wallström’s comments. I am also relatively happy with Mr Sacconi’s report. My only criticism of your report and of a number of the amendments submitted by Mr De Roo concerns the comments that Mrs Wallström also made. Let me say the following: there is now a new instrument that has two kinds of voluntary agreements. One is based on legislation in the form of co-regulation; you can build on that, things can happen more quickly, we do not have to prescribe everything straight away. The second suggestion that now appears in the new memorandum is completely voluntary self-regulation in which partners in the market agree something with each other which may anticipate what will be agreed at some point in the future. This is based on voluntariness. I feel – and this has just been expressed by Mrs Wallström – that anxiety is often the worst adviser in this Parliament, that we prescribe so much and that we are becoming so detailed that we are in the process of throwing the baby out with the bathwater, although we should be pleased with the large number of agreements there are. May I perhaps say – Christian democracy being the midfield defender incarnate in my country – that very many things would not have happened without voluntariness. Take the packaging covenant, for example. That is a voluntary agreement that goes much further than the one that the most extreme would like to achieve now on a European level. It is a voluntary agreement. Give a clear field to voluntariness, I would say. Let it take the place of the instrument, if it must. Mr Sacconi, that is why I am asking everyone to approve the amendment that I have submitted on behalf of my group. The same goes for the PVC strategy. We could have achieved much more if this Parliament – including the liberals, incidentally – had said at the time: we are now going to ask the Commission to develop a new policy together with industry which will enable them to energetically go about ensuring – and in fact you were the rapporteur, Mr Sacconi – that that PVC is used up. The same applies to pedestrian safety. We could prevent 2 000 deaths a year if we act quickly. I would like to ask for the other group to be allowed more leeway and to be trusted. I am in favour of a good environmental policy. All of us here are; please make sure it is a good one.

Political group: PPE-DE