GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Mr President, all of us want to see less poverty and more social justice. More jobs can provide both. More employment laws like the atypical workers' directive will secure neither. The Commission is trying to impose a straitjacket on something that cannot and does not need to be standardised. My colleague, Mr Pronk, said a moment ago that he would like everyone to recognise that Member States organise temporary work in different ways. That is absolutely right. I too would like everyone to recognise that, and we want Member States to be able to continue to organise in different ways. The very adjective 'atypical' in the name of this directive says it all. Earlier in this debate Ms Attwooll said that Amendment No 71, for example, would guard against any adverse effects. That is wishful thinking. This amendment offers some help, but the improvements are marginal and all our temporary workers, recruitment agencies and client companies will be saying the same thing – that we are still left with a directive that could cost the UK alone 160 000 jobs. I will address my final remarks to the Commissioner, even though she will probably never speak to me again. Last week the press reported her as saying that the EU had created a net 12 million jobs over the last six years and that the EU' s rigid labour market was not the main problem facing Europe's economy. It is very easy to say that there is no problem or that, if there is, then it is someone else's problem. It is a problem for all of us, but you are, with respect, making it worse. You are proposing the atypical workers' directive which, instead of promoting job flexibility, will help to kill it off. This directive has little to do with protecting the rights of temporary workers, certainly in the UK where happily they already enjoy such protection. It is notionally about protecting the jobs of permanent workers by making it more difficult for companies to employ temporary staff. The Financial Times yesterday reported on the labour market problems in Germany, describing how reform is being resisted and vested interests are being protected, all under the guise of promoting social justice. The Commission should have the guts to strip away this pretence and withdraw this directive. To encourage it to do so, the UK Conservative delegation will vote against this report.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as rapporteur, Mr Bowis has produced an excellent report, and in many areas I would like to reinforce what he has said. Establishing an efficient and independent European Food Safety Agency is very much to be welcomed, not least because of the various food scandals to date. Food safety is a fundamental requirement for consumers, because they want to eat healthily, and we have to ensure that this is possible. The Agency's central tasks will therefore be risk assessment and risk communication, an early warning system with the assistance of the five food committees all working together, excellent public relations work with consumers on food and food safety issues, and optimum networking with scientific institutions and control agencies in the Member States, so as to guarantee controls on the ground from producer to consumer. In order to rebuild and strengthen consumer confidence, food safety and regulations need to be taken into account in legislation governing fertilisers, plant health products, medicines, the environment and waste. Reliable risk assessment requires comprehensive analyses and reference measurements. To make scientific results comparable across Europe, the measurement techniques applied need to be standardised and harmonised. An appropriate infrastructure is required for testing food and in particular toxic substances in animal feed. The Joint Research Centre's Health and Consumer Protection Institute is currently also carrying out pan-European quality and safety checks on food, and is amongst other things testing food for contamination and carrying out reference measurements for agricultural products and foodstuffs. Substantial financial means are needed for all these measures. It is therefore advisable also to involve and take advantage of the European Union's existing institutions, and if appropriate extend them. The funding necessary for this needs to be made available by 2002. I have tabled an amendment on this subject, and I hope you will support it.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, Commissioner, judging by the results of the latest Eurobarometer, the people of Europe have more trust in their police force than in their parliaments. This is an alarming sign, which should compel the people’s elected representatives to work together to eliminate the reasons for this. The legitimacy of democratic regimes is at stake. It is up to the MPs of each Member State to reduce the democratic deficits that are appearing at national level, and which also exist at this level. In the report before us today, MEPs are being called on to examine how the role played by the national parliaments in European integration could be strengthened. Not to the detriment of the role of the European Parliament, but to complement it. Mr Napolitano, the rapporteur, is proposing a number of specific measures which have been approved by the Group of the and which could, in my view, easily receive the unanimous approval of the Convention. Mr Napolitano quite rightly calls for the powers of the national parliament vis-à-vis their respective governments to be strengthened, prior to decisions being taken in the Council. In some of our Member States, the procedure of influencing decisions is well organised. In other States, it does not even exist in embryonic form. To put it simply, the national parliaments let their government get on with things and complain afterwards. The rapporteur, quite rightly, also rules out the idea of a second or even a third legislative chamber. A new institution such as this falls at the stumbling block posed by the question ‘why set up a new institution?’ If we ‘institutionalise’ the Convention with the participation of the national parliaments, this is another way of exerting a much-needed influence at the preparatory stage of the extensive reforms. It is clear that the method advocated by the European Parliament must henceforth be used to reform the Treaty and it could even go beyond constitutional matters. For example, why not call a convention to prepare the next European Union multi-annual financial programme? If this financial envelope must incorporate a new specific resource in the form of a European tax, I think it is essential that the representatives of the national parliaments deliberate it from the outset.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, the crisis in European farming is already bad enough, thanks to BSE. Foot-and-mouth – because it is such a highly infectious disease – is the last straw. It is hardly surprising that farmers – but not only farmers – are calling for rigorous action to be taken and, with your permission, I should like to ask a few questions about this. First: do you know the exact extent of the epidemic at the latest count? Secondly: farmers are anxious to know if the foot-and-mouth vaccination has been abolished once and for all. What are you thinking of doing here, given the current circumstances, for stock in general and for particularly valuable animals, such as animals on stud farms? Thirdly: transportation is once again centre stage. Is the transportation of animals and meat within the European Parliament being jointly controlled? And if so, how? What sanctions are to be applied in the event of infringement? Fourthly: all imports of animals and animal products into the Community are a source of concern. Argentina can supply what customers want: beef which is guaranteed free from BSE. That is something at least. But, as you said, they have foot-and-mouth disease. What specific protection and what safety measures have you introduced here, Commissioner? And fifthly: my last point – and it is an important point – concerns the cost of foot-and-mouth. Who pays what and what funds do you think the EU should provide? Is the Commission willing to learn from experience with the BSE crisis and act now, rather than just react as and when it has to in order to contain the foot-and-mouth epidemic? For me this means that the Commission itself should take action as well as coordinating national measures. (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, the Russian Parliament is trying to impeach this same President for the former war in Chechnya. The war is political, it is taking place at the same time as election campaigns in Russia, so that any way out must also be political. It will not be possible to get these fighters out of the mountains using force. Russia has got its own Kurdish problem, which is evidently just as difficult to solve as it has been in Turkey. In both cases international aid is required simply on account of the refugees, some of whose camps are out in the open. Soon they will be covered in snow. In addition, there is the threat of the conflict spreading. Military operations are now taking place in the territories of at least five States and for this reason the matter is already an international one. The OSCE and the Union must offer to negotiate between the two sides so that in this way, the stalemate, which seems time and again to lead to war in the area, can be broken. We must act swiftly to aid the refugees because they are the innocent ones in what has happened. It is therefore a question of a political solution – I do not believe a military one to be possible – and we now have the opportunity to help Russia, which is in a difficult political situation in any case, by offering help to find a solution and bring about negotiations on the Chechen problem.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, I asked Mr Lamy explicitly what he thinks of Taiwan joining the WTO in the context of the Republic of China’s joining. He has not given me an answer. May I have an answer?

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, the European Union spends EUR 1 billion each year subsidising tobacco production – EUR 1 billion. That kills over 500,000 EU citizens – half a million of our citizens. It would be cheaper to go out and shoot them. It would save money on health services. How many billion euros are spent on health services trying to save the lives of people who try to kill themselves with cigarettes? As you have gathered, I am an intolerant non-smoker. I do care, and I am extremely concerned about the increasing number of people, particularly young girls, who are starting to smoke. We can write off those of my age and older who have been at it virtually all their lives but young people are missing the message. Surely, it is not beyond the best brains of the political world, the medical and scientific world and the marketing world to get the message right so that our young people do not start to smoke. That is my plea. Can we not get the marketing message to them? We would have to protect the tobacco farmers. There would have to be alternatives, but surely it can be done. It is immoral to spend EU taxpayers' money on subsidising a product that kills half a million of our people. We must find alternatives. In my country, and I suspect in all the other 14 Member States, you can have drink rehabilitation paid for by the public health medical system, you can have hard drug rehabilitation paid for by the public health medical system, but anyone trying to come off cigarettes gets no help from state public health services. We must correct that anomaly. In my country nicotine replacement therapy is only available by medical prescription. Madness! It should be available next to where all cigarettes and tobacco products are sold. You can opt to buy replacement therapy rather than overdose on cigarettes. What is the difference? The general medical services systems, which in Ireland is our public health care system, should fund those who want to come off cigarettes and provide nicotine replacement therapy prescriptions free. The state should fund it.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, I am very pleased to speak on behalf of the Group of the and to congratulate the rapporteur on an excellent report. This is a most important topic, especially with a growing ageing population in Europe. The solidarity of different age groups and actors involved in this field is vital in this regard. One should emphasise that unity, not only between nations and regions but also between people, is an area in which the European Union has a very proud record, and this report emphasises that fact. Low employment of ageing workers is a matter that the European Parliament should have tackled far earlier. I am very pleased with the emphasis in the report on reviewing the tax and benefit schemes to provide incentives to take up job offers: this is an initiative that is welcome. Promoting life-long learning – a topic that has already been mentioned by another speaker – is a matter I also support. With new technology and distance-learning possibilities open to older people, real, new opportunities offer themselves to them and they should be allowed to take advantage of this. On social protection policies: in its work programme for 1999, the Commission paid particular attention to ways to reverse the trend towards early retirement, to explore new forms of gradual retirement and to make pension schemes more sustainable and flexible. On policies against discrimination and social exclusion: the social action programme sets out the Commission's intentions to explore the possibilities for developing new Community action programmes based on Articles 13, 129 and 139, as modified in Amsterdam, and that is something we all welcome. The attention given to medical and social research related to ageing is an excellent emphasis in the report. Perhaps – and I say this as a member of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport – sport and exercise should have been given more emphasis to keep ageing people fit and healthy – but that is something I am sure the rapporteur is well aware of. I welcome the excellent initiative on the part of the rapporteur and give it every support on behalf of my Group.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, allow me to ask the Commissioner one more question. First allow me to point out, Commissioner Byrne, that the European Parliament has no right of legislative initiative. But we do reserve the right, when you propose to amend a directive or a regulation, to look at the whole regulation and not just the part which you have singled out. Nonetheless, we have confined ourselves in our proposed amendments to bringing the text into line with that of other directives and we have disregarded the question of content. For example, you did not go into antibiotics. We are therefore talking about harmonising the legal provisions in the individual directives. My question, Commissioner Byrne is this: the UN conference in Montreal decided that genetically-modified organisms must be labelled for international trade. Do you really believe that, if we could, Parliament would permit labelling to be left off feedingstuff additives within the European Union? Commissioner Byrne, it appears that you want to engage in a test of strength with Parliament. We negotiated the seed marketing legislation for two years. I look forward to the next round.

Political group: Verts-ALE
We voted against this report in order to condemn the hypocrisy of a text which claims to oppose the renewed outbreak of thefts of cultural objects in the European Union and the illicit trade in such objects. The author of this text forgets to point out that not only the national museums of the countries of Europe but also private collections are filled with cultural objects pillaged over centuries from the countries of the Mediterranean, the Middle East, Asia and Latin America or Africa While the British Museum, the Louvre, and the Pergamon Museum in Berlin are filled with the wonders of ancient art, in Greece there are mostly only plaster copies now. In museums, these cultural objects are at least exhibited to the public. The same is not true, however, of private collections. If this text is claiming to prevent illicit trade, it should first of all define as illicit all purchases which enable extremely rich individuals to appropriate and keep for their own private use cultural goods which ought to be the heritage of the whole of humanity and accessible to everyone.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, when the rapporteur started work on this report, there was a real danger that this Parliament would end up rejecting the Treaty of Nice through an unholy alliance of those who felt it went too far and those who felt it did not go far enough, so it is a tribute to their work that they have steered Parliament to a very sensible analysis of the Treaty and a strategy for moving forward from here. Some indeed, as we heard just now in the debate, still seem to have the fanciful idea that this Treaty is setting up a centralised superstate: I find it astonishing that they can read the Treaty of Nice and genuinely believe that. Also outside this House, the British Conservative Party is campaigning in the UK election saying it would not ratify the Treaty of Nice if it were to come to power. This is not the case with their Members here, or at least not all of their Members here – I noticed that the two British Conservative Members in the committee voted for the Méndez de Vigo/Seguro report and I pay tribute to them for having done so. Conservatives back home, however, are coming up with this idea that this Treaty sets up a superstate. That really is nonsense and it does not seem to be doing them much good in the opinion polls. The public can see through this particular fanciful idea. If you were to look behind you, you would see in the bouquet of flags that the Irish Flag has been placed where the European Flag usually is, in the middle of the bouquet, presumably because Ireland is the only Member State holding a referendum on the Treaty of Nice. Why is only Ireland holding a referendum? Why not Denmark and others? Precisely because in this Treaty of Nice there is no further transfer of competence to the European Union. It is not a centralising treaty and the critics, of course, know that. Others have been disappointed with the Treaty of Nice, because it did not go far enough and because of some of the questionable compromises it contains, such as the voting system in the Council and the extra seats in the European Parliament. As work went on in our committee, however, we realised that Nice also had a lot of positive points. In any case if you feel that it had shortcomings, the best way to improve it is to use the process of 2004. Rejecting Nice would have caused delay and confusion. 2004 offers us opportunities to improve what our President of the Council refers to as the existing European constitution, the Treaties. Yes, it needs improvement, but so does our method for working on it. That needs to start with our preparation for an IGC: Not the usual group of foreign ministry officials, with all due respect to Mr Gunnar Lund, but a wider more representative body. Hence Parliament's demand for a convention of the Council, not just a forum. The forum is the wide debate that is taking place with civil society. We need something to channel that debate into a set of conclusions that the IGC can work on. That is what we need, an IGC at the end remains something that can distil the debate... (The President cut the speaker off)

Political group: PSE
Mr President-in-Office, do you not think that this interest in democracy and human rights is, to say the least, hypocritical when it comes to a country which, despite the long-standing and inhumane embargo imposed on it and the inexorable war being waged against it by the USA, has achieved the highest standard of living and education in Central and Latin America? Do you not also think that we should respect the desire of the overwhelming majority of the Cuban people to defend their Socialist homeland and that we should start by calling on the administration of the USA to halt its criminal embargo and terrorism against Cuba and the leaders of the Cuban people? Seriously, what do you intend to do, Mr President-in-Office, to liberate the five Cuban freedom fighters in jail in the USA for condemning the terrorism being inflicted on Cuba and its leaders by the administration of the United States of America?

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, I would firstly like to congratulate Mrs Lienemann on the excellent work which she has presented and on her efforts in terms of overcoming the differences between us with regard to water. The framework directive on water is a necessary initiative. Nevertheless, given that the idea of solidarity is central to the process of European construction, this directive must take into account the fact that water resources should be seen as a factor in social cohesion. Nobody doubts that water is a resource of interest to all of us. However, in Spain and the other southern countries, which have an unusual climate, the management of water resources require political action in order to rationalise their use and other cooperative measures. Therefore, we believe that this framework directive should advocate a use of water which allows us to overcome territorial imbalances and, to this end, I ask that you support Amendment No 95, which has been presented by our group. We wish to ensure that Article 1 of the directive promotes the sustainable, efficient, fair and considerate use of water. I am now going to briefly discuss the main issues on which the Spanish Socialist delegation differs somewhat from certain positions which have been expressed here. One example is water transfers. We would prefer the future framework directive not to subject the implementation of transfers to Community supervision. We consider that, given the hydrological characteristics of Spain, where transfers of a structural nature are carried out, the authorities of the country should make decisions with regard to its own resources, and these decisions should, of course, always be taken in accordance with the quest for cohesion and the rational use of water. With regard to one of the most controversial points of our debate, the application of tariffs, the Spanish Socialists have been arguing, in accordance with the principle that the polluter should pay, that the directive should propose policies on accessible prices for all levels of consumption. In Spain, a policy of full recuperation of water costs would clearly not have the same effect as in the countries of the centre and north of Europe. The Spanish would see an increase in the price of water for its different uses, owing to the scarcity of water resources and the internalisation of the environmental costs which will have to be met within the framework of the provisions of the directive. We have therefore always argued for a progressive system of recuperation of costs. This system should take good account of social, environmental and economic effects, and its implementation should be modulated in accordance with differing geographical and climatic conditions. We want to build a Europe with a sustainable and healthy environment. However, an environmental Europe cannot, in any circumstances, be built at different speeds, but must be built from a point of view of solidarity.

Political group: PSE