GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Mr President, Commissioner, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, I consider the policy of economic and social cohesion to be one of the European Union's undoubted achievements, attesting as it does the principle of solidarity between the highly-developed regions and the weak ones. Of course, on further analysis of the way structural policy has worked to date, it has to be said that it has a lot of inadequacies. Firstly: The divergence between Member States may well have decreased, but the differences within them – between highly-developed regions and weak ones – have increased. Secondly: The unemployment rate in the weak regions has not significantly decreased. Thirdly: The average per capita income of the wealthiest regions, which make up 10% of the Union's population, is still 2.6 times higher than in the regions in which 10% of the poorest inhabitants live. Fourthly: The underdeveloped regions still do not possess self-supporting economic and social cycles. They therefore have enormous problems when it comes to actually reducing the amount by which they lag behind the developed areas. Fifthly: You yourselves can see that the commitment appropriations yet to be settled totalled almost EUR 42 billion at the end of 1999, in other words the Structural Fund's input for specific projects is inefficient! This means that other measures, even other projects, must be deliberately chosen, something which can, of course, only be done in collaboration with the Member States. Whatever the shortcomings, the enormous amount of change cannot be overlooked. Differences would otherwise be markedly greater. This also means that we must carry on with the Structural Fund policy. You have just said, Mr Barnier, that there must be no taboos. Too true! All the Member States said more or less the same thing at the informal meeting in Namur, and proposals were submitted. But sooner or later, we must get to the point. At some juncture, it will have to be said that these proposals cost X amount of money, and we must either make it available or we have to admit that we are not going to. This cannot be put off for ever and a day. You will be aware that the upper limit equals 1.27% of GDP within the financial perspective for 2000 to 2006. Where are we in real terms? At 1.06%. You can hardly call that putting real structural policy into practice! It is also because of Parliament... (Interruption by Mr Jarzembowski) No, I am not only accusing the Commissioner; we put up with this sort of thing all the time! Not my Group, though; we have always submitted the relevant amendments. Perhaps, Mr Jarzembowski, the PPE- Group would like to join in next time, then we should almost make up a majority! In the context of this discussion, we must also of course bear in mind that there are very special regions. I regret to have to say, Commissioner, that the border regions programme imposed by the Commission is utterly inadequate! Perhaps we will have to give some thought to doing something similar... (The President cut the speaker off)

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the European Union is a community founded upon peace, and hence also on solidarity. Not only do we talk in those terms, but we live in solidarity and set definite dates. I would remind you that, at its first September sitting, Parliament almost unanimously passed a 19-point resolution on the flood disasters in Austria, Germany, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, that our second sitting found us voting the Budget lines, and that today, in our third part-session, this mini-plenary is creating the legal basis for all this. We are standing alongside the victims, acting swiftly, unbureaucratically and consistently, and it is for this reason that we have also chosen to use the accelerated procedure for matters of urgent importance. We are keeping our promise, and I would also remind you that we have doubled the proposal by the Council and the Commission for EUR 500 million to be allocated to the Fund. We also call on the Council not to alter our definition of a major disaster – over EUR 1 billion in damage in any one country or over 0.5% of its GDP – as any change would nullify the consistency of our stance. We call upon the Council to take up the proposal from Parliament and the Commission and make it a resolution. We can and must tell the victims that, subject to the agreement of the Council on 21 October 2002, we will see to it that money can flow to the affected regions from 1 November onwards. Agnes Schierhuber and I are from an affected region in Lower Austria and represent many who know how much damage was done and how much hope has been kindled by the policy of acting speedily and naming specific dates. We rejoice and are also rather proud to be able to show by this example how we not only talk and make promises, but are also capable of fixing dates and acting promptly. (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE
As my colleague Bill Newton-Dunn said, we have a number of colleagues in the UK who are indulging in fairly standard if facile anti-European scaremongering on this proposal and they have got a large number of sugarbeet farmers extremely worried. We need your help to be able to persuade our constituents and our farming community that the claims made by the anti-European wing in our political environment, and indeed others, are wrong. To that end, could you perhaps reassure me firstly when the impact assessment will be available to us so that we can cite it to perhaps explode some of the apocalyptic claims that have surrounded your proposal and, secondly, give some more details about the safeguard clause which I think you are considering introducing into this measure and also the transition period before the measure finally gets implemented?

Political group: ELDR
For more than thirty years, the European Union has worked hard to construct its special partnership agreement with the African, Caribbean and Pacific States. It was within this policy of openness and solidarity that the common organisation of the market in bananas was established to guarantee access to the European market for a certain percentage of the bananas produced by ACP countries, which include some of the poorest countries in the world. This measure was opposed from the outset by the major, multinational banana companies, which are very competitive, but this often entails exploitation verging on slavery! Owing to political pressure, economic sanctions, compromises and concessions, the entire quantity protection system will be abolished from 2006 and will be replaced by a protection system based solely on tariffs. As yet, no one knows how effective this will be in protecting the interests of the traditional ACP banana producers. The agreement reached in April 2001 did of course end the trade war that had poisoned our relationship with the United States for almost ten years. But some of the measures genuinely are a bitter pill for the ACP countries to swallow. These include the abolition, in 2006, of quota protection guaranteeing traditional producers access to the European market and a 100 000-tonne reduction in the guaranteed production quantity from January 2002. In addition, they are affected by the deficiencies and delays of the financial and technical assistance measures established to help ACP producers adapt to the new market conditions. They are still waiting to receive their payments. Michel Dary’s report, that we will reach a decision on today, proposes that we offer the ACP countries a number of safety nets to be used during the transition period, before they step out into the unknown when the common organisation of the market in bananas ceases to exist. (Speech shortened pursuant to Rule 137 of the Rules of Procedure)

Political group: PSE
Mr President, for years now, the European Parliament and our group have been asking for a proper description of fundamental rights of the European citizens in the European treaties. The request was made at the time of the Treaty of Maastricht and the Treaty of Amsterdam. In this connection, I would also remind you of the report which I had the privilege of writing in conjunction with Mrs Dury in preparation for the Treaty of Amsterdam. This question was raised in that document too. In fact, it was in this document that we achieved our first successes, for our anti-discrimination clause was used in the Treaty of Amsterdam virtually verbatim. Later on, at the Cologne Summit, Parliament’s wider request was also honoured. A meeting was proposed for the purpose of producing a Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European citizen. The question which concerns us today, more than anything is: what should this charter contain and what legal force should it have? As far as the latter is concerned, I would like to express my unequivocal support in favour of including a charter in the treaties and in favour of a charter which can be enforced on behalf of citizens upon the European courts. We should not produce empty shells; our citizens would see through them straight away anyway. As far as the content is concerned, the charter must tie in with the existing conventions, such as the Council of Europe’s European Convention for the protection of human rights. In fact, in my opinion, the Union should sign up to that Convention without delay. The charter should at least deal with the citizens’ fundamental rights, the political rights, the social rights and, in my opinion, the rights of minorities too, and it should form a supplement to what we already have. It should not duplicate what is already there. New threats, in particular, will need to be anticipated, such as in the field of information and biotechnology, and in the protection of the environment, of which man forms part. Mr President, the rights of minorities appear to constitute one of the most difficult areas in the charter and because this has been and will be one of Europe’s key problems, I would argue in favour of including fundamental rights of minorities in the charter. I will probably submit a text on this matter myself. But the most important fact, Mr President, is that the charter will be given legal force, that it will be included in the Treaty and that our citizens will be reassured that the European Union will take its fundamental rights seriously too, and will want to defend them up to the highest level.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, I would like to begin by congratulating Mr Bodrato on the quality of his report and I would like to include Commissioner Busquin in those congratulations since, in the course of this legislature, which is drawing to a close, he has been absolutely crucial in the European Union becoming a space power. I do not believe the intergovernmental level is enough today and, in a world where competition in space matters is growing, we must underpin the development of space and the European Union’s space autonomy with a strong political power, which is embodied by the European Union. I believe that is the essence of what has happened during this legislature. Personally, I am glad about it. Another thing that has happened is that we have launched an ambitious programme, the Galileo programme, in which a number of countries in the world are interested, China in particular. I would like to raise a number of points about the White Paper and Mr Bodrato’s resolution. The first point is about the budget. I believe it is absolutely essential for us to be very ambitious about space and in particular that our ambitions about space should be part of an industrial policy. An independent space programme is not simply a matter of sending devices into Europe’s space, it is also about mastering the basic technologies and their civilian applications, of which there are a great number. The second point is about the link between the military and civilian. I think we should tie in our thinking, that of Commissioner Busquin and the DG for Research, with what is happening in the common foreign and security policy, because it is well known that the Americans and all the existing space powers, including the Russians and the Chinese, have devoted a large part of their space developments to military applications. The third point concerns enlargement. I think a number of the countries that are going to be joining Europe are not necessarily going to feel interested in Ariane or in space developments whose spin-offs today benefit mainly France, Italy, the United Kingdom and Germany, but not necessarily Lithuania, Cyprus or Malta. It is therefore very important that we send those countries a message. That is why I have tabled an amendment to the effect that we should bring astronauts from the countries of Central and Eastern Europe into the corps of European astronauts and that we should plan a manned flight with one such astronaut very soon in order to involve them in the conquest of space and its magic and so that they will support it. My final point is about US strategy. I do not know whether it is an opportunist strategy on Mr Bush’s part in the run-up to the election campaign. At any rate I am glad that Europe is in on it, but it must not for all that neglect the establishment of Soyuz in Kourou or neglect its independence in space matters. That is what I wanted to say to you, ladies and gentlemen.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, I support the proposals in the Linkohr report. The situation in which we are seeing the Commission and Council fail to give Parliament codecision in relation to this Fund and the technical guidelines which will be produced in relation to it is not acceptable and there should be a change of attitude in relation to that. It is a great pity that we are moving away from the social policy aspects of these Funds, which provided some relief for companies and, in particular, the workers of companies who were being restructured. ISPAT in Cork, Ireland, which was formerly a state company, was bought over some years ago by a private company and is now in liquidation. The 400 workers there are in receipt of statutory redundancy – a few thousand pounds for literally a lifetime's work – and yet when government and trade unions sought support from the social policy aspects of this Fund they were refused. It is quite extraordinary that we have this situation. It is even more extraordinary because ISPAT was a plant which recycled scrapped steel: the objective of the new Research Fund is to improve environmental standards and the impact of the steel industry on the environment, and here was a company that was actually doing that. It must be emphasised very strongly that, insofar as this Research Fund has any impact, it must be on safety at work. In January this year there was an unfortunate case where a man lost his life in this steel factory. The company had failed to invest in fire-fighter training and to provide for escape hatches and this man lost his life as a result of the company's negligence. We need to ensure that health and safety regulations are strictly enforced.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, environmental liability is a sensitive topic. This is also evident from the battle between the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy and the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market. The Council has struck a feeble compromise, which just may take effect after the review in a few years’ time. At the moment, it is feeble at any rate, and will not do much to help improve the situation of the environment. Where biodiversity is concerned, we are lagging even behind the United States in terms of legislation. It is very important to us, the Group of the , to extend the scope of this directive. It has been said before: firstly, nuclear energy, secondly, pollution by sea-going ships and thirdly, damage caused by GM crops. Commissioner Bolkestein, you have the reputation of speaking in no uncertain terms and of not pulling your punches, but I have to say that your hiding behind the coexistence rule is, of course, nonsense. What is at issue here is that the Commission is frightened of pressure from the United States, and it should simply admit this. The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy was in favour of extending the directive by these three supplements; the Liberal rapporteur, regrettably, was not. Another important point is compulsory insurance. That is essential. Unfortunately, the are opposed to this, and so is the Liberal rapporteur. The crucial question is: who should foot the bill for environmental damage? In its draft, the Commission wanted to pass the buck to the governments, and it is fortunate that these, in the common position, declined to do so. The polluter pays, and so he should. It is the businesses, not the governments, that cause pollution. I have to get something off my chest. The rapporteur has made rather a hash of things. He has taken only right-wing views into consideration, as illustrated by the amendments relating to good agricultural practice. He is responsible for Parliament’s lack of power, and industry will be grateful to him.

Political group: Verts-ALE
We fully support the right to free movement of persons, as one of the fundamental freedoms of the internal market. That is also why we have chosen to vote in favour of Mrs Lambert’s report. It is natural that the EU, in order to realise its vision of the free movement of workers and other citizens who can support themselves, lay down stipulations for EU citizens moving from one country to another. A significant risk when the EU becomes involved in areas that should chiefly be dealt with by the Member States, however, is that the body of legislation doubles. When Member States want to protect their benefit systems, they resort to discriminatory transitional arrangements because the detailed EU rules do not permit permanent measures that are completely reasonable. Pensions and other benefits that have been accrued can be taken along without problems when citizens move to another EU country, whereas social security benefits (for example child allowances and housing benefit) that are not accrued individually should not in principle be paid out to persons resident in another country. In the context of the EU-25 that is now being formed, Regulation (EEC) No 1408/71, the Social Charter, should be revised in order that it better suits the new requirements.

Political group: ELDR
President-in-Office of the Council, do you consider it appropriate to adopt measures to prevent sexual harassment in the Armed Forces? Such measures would prevent the situation Dolores Quiñoa found herself in. She was the victim of an assault but was then powerless against her attacker. President-in-Office of the Council, you must be aware that, in Spain, victims are defenceless against attackers like Lieutenant Iván Moriano. Such individuals can act with impunity. You must take into account, Mr President, the fact that a large number of cases of harassment go unreported because victims are ashamed and afraid, or because they fear reprisals. Lastly, please note that the number of cases actually made public is very high, and is increasing. President-in-Office of the Council, you do have competencies on coordination and harmonisation in countries like Ireland, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Greece, the Netherlands, Denmark, Portugal, France, Italy and Belgium. In Ireland for example, of the 60 women in the Armed Forces interviewed, 28 had been subjected to sexual harassment. In the United Kingdom military courts dealt with 192 violent crimes in the year 2000 alone. Thirty-four of these crimes were of a sexual nature. President-in-Office of the Council, coordination and harmonisation are needed with a view to establishing measures to prevent sexual harassment in the Armed Forces. I urge you not to evade your responsibility in this area.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the report by Mrs Berger, whom I should like to thank for the large amount of work she has done, has once again clearly regenerated the traditional fight in this Parliament for more or less harmonisation. It might be useful to remind ourselves of the fact that in the original Commission proposal, maximum harmonisation was very much the main objective in terms of distance marketing of financial services. The Council, on the other hand, took a completely different view. Needless to say, a great deal can be said for the Commission’s original position. It was undoubtedly the best solution, both for providers of financial services and for the consumer. The division in Parliament, however, makes it impossible to secure this best solution. Moreover, in its common position, the Council would like to introduce exceptions to the principle of maximum harmonisation. This is unfortunate, for national provisions can indeed constitute barriers to the establishment of the internal market. Only complete harmonisation guarantees equal competitive conditions between the institutions and instils consumer confidence in services that are offered by other Member States. The exceptions to the principle of complete harmonisation can seriously hinder e-commerce because service providers are thus obliged to take account of provisions enshrined in the fifteen different legal systems. I should also like to emphasise that the principle concerning the right of the country of origin will on the whole apply when there is no complete harmonisation. This will be extremely detrimental to some institutions because the legislations are very different in the area of restrictions. By way of conclusion, I can therefore state that maximum harmonisation is still the preferred solution, but it once again appears that politics is the art of the possible. And a bird in the hand might be worth two in the bush. To put it more clearly: it is better to have a second-rate solution than no solution at all.

Political group: ELDR
Madam President, the prohibition of the use of carcinogenic substances in cosmetics in the future is a great success for this Parliament. We have campaigned hard for this. While this was a cause close to our heart, we also know that this position could never have gained majority support without great commitment on the part of the rapporteur, who made our demands her own. So a great deal of gratitude is owed to Mrs Roth-Behrendt, particularly for this position, one that was of enormous importance to us. It is my belief that the Council at first attempted to wait for a risk assessment, in order thereby to leave carcinogenic substances on the market. That was utterly unacceptable, and we are therefore glad that the Council has abandoned its ‘wait and see’ approach, for there is no room in cosmetics for carcinogenic substances. Not only is it obvious and a matter of common sense that nobody wants carcinogenic substances in face creams, but that is also the view of the Scientific Committee. We are also very glad that, in future, hazardous ingredients will have to be listed, and their quantity stated, on cosmetic products, and we will certainly have to be very vigilant in monitoring the implementation of Parliament's demand for information on substances hazardous to health to be made accessible to the public, whether that be in a public register or by some other means. Although it is a bitter pill for us to swallow that the current marketing ban is to be extended by another five years as regards eleven tests and deferred for ten years in respect of three others, this is still a great forward advance in view of the Member States' unwillingness to implement it and of the subsequent attempt at even completely abolishing the marketing ban, which we were successful in resisting. There are now clear and realistic criteria for the development and marketing of alternative tests, so that Parliament can count this as one of its great triumphs, not only for animal welfare, but also for consumers.

Political group: Verts-ALE