GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Madam President, the exercises in financial engineering required by the current budgetary process demonstrate, once again, the precariousness of the Community financial framework. We are not, of course, opposed to the priorities that the rapporteur has outlined. As a matter of fact, I wish to congratulate the rapporteurs on their work. We believe, however, that other approaches could be pursued in order to achieve these priorities, without prejudice to and with total respect for the legitimacy and the competences conferred on us, and particularly which would give us an advantage in achieving these very priorities. The most important aspect of this situation is the revision of the financial perspective. Or, in the absence of such a revision, the full use of the prerogatives that the Treaties confer on us. It is, in fact, unacceptable to maintain and sustain a budget that is clearly inadequate for the set of priorities that we are coming up with. Objectively, the means to achieve the ambitions that are being proclaimed are lacking. Parliament is constantly losing power and the result is clear to see, especially in heading 4, in which we are seeing a clear and ongoing pressure on cooperation with the least-developed countries, given the inclusion in this category of pre-accession aid for the candidate countries and sums for the reconstruction, first of the Balkans and now of Afghanistan. This situation must change. Having said this, I should like to say something about a particular case: that of East Timor. I shall start by saying that I agree with the sums decided on by the Committee on Budgets. I do not agree, however, with eliminating the specific line for that young and much-benighted country. This would send a damaging and destabilising political message to a population that gained independence only a few weeks ago and which is still facing all manner of shortcomings. This would be a political message that does not, furthermore, tally with the resolutions that we have adopted, or even with the Sakharov Prize that we awarded. In addition to which, making funds available under the Asia budget line at a time when the path of future cooperation between East Timor and the European Union has not yet been defined would clearly be an act of rashness. I therefore believe it is right and crucial that the situation that has been created should be rectified in plenary.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, our sitting is not being broadcast on television! It would be good for the world to be able to see your imposing figure presiding over the House, and a live television programme broadcast at this time of day showing our alluring Commissioner would be just the thing. But there are no television cameras here. We are not being filmed. Sadly, as the previous speakers have said, our televisions show scenes of violence and rampant sex, some of which feed money into the State coffers through the infamous advertisements publicising sex chat lines, and yet we, the European Union, ban the sale of toys containing phthalates – and rightly so for they are dangerous if children put them in their mouths. It is not enough to leave parents to keep watch over their children: we ban the toys! That is what we do. And why, in this case, then, do we not just ban all programmes which are harmful to us all? Oh, no. In this case, we leave parents to keep an eye on their children. But consider how often are parents at home, how often they have to go out. We should also ban mobile phones, the WAP phones we hear so much about, which all the youngsters will soon be carrying about town, putting their lives at risk from traffic because they are watching television programmes and absorbed in material from all the different States of the European Union displayed on their mobile phones. I do not, therefore, agree with the words of the Liberal Member who has just spoken. I am afraid that the heavens and the satellites will soon be raining signals from all over the Union down on all our States. And it is therefore important for a European directive to be adopted to prevent the transmission of harmful material.

Political group: PPE-DE
This annual report follows up Article 280 of the Treaty, relating to the policy of preventing and fighting fraud in the EU. Firstly, it is regrettable that the Eurostat affair was not included, which highlighted the risks inherent in the Commission’s outsourcing policy and the fact that outsourcing should only be used as a last resort. Secondly, the report shows that the number of cases of fraud and irregularities reported in 2002 has risen by 13% to over EUR two billion, most of these under the Structural Funds. It should be noted that the year in question was an unusual year due to the conclusion of the programmes for the period 1994-1999. Germany and the Netherlands accounted for almost two-thirds of irregularities, and for 55% of fraud and irregularities in traditional own resources, namely unpaid customs duties and unpaid duties on goods moving within the EU. It is therefore essential that we implement measures effectively to coordinate the fight against smuggling, particularly of tobacco and alcohol. Lastly, I agree with the rapporteur on the need for a Commissioner to be exclusively responsible for budgetary control and that the European Central Bank should report all cases of fraud since 1999 to OLAF.

Political group: GUE-NGL
If an inhabitant of Sub-Saharan Africa gets wind of the discussions that we have in the European Parliament, he must quickly realise that a good number of our issues for debate can only affect rich countries. Indeed, when he looks at his personal situation and that of the great majority of his own, he will realise that there is a gap growing between the old continent and this developing Africa. We, however, have a message to give to him. Since Europe, as we are continually declaring, is based on the values of humanism and solidarity, we need to put these noble sentiments into practice. We need to help those who are suffering; we have the means to do so. Medicines to start with, to put an end to the deaths of over 28 000 children under five years old who die every day from illnesses that can be treated, many of them easily. We can also help and support the sick who are victims of AIDS with treatments that we have for patients in Europe, but which are too expensive for developing countries. Is there any greater inequality than that in the face of an illness? We also have the financial means. How can we remain impassive when, for example, the funds that we have earmarked for development are not used and these amounts could save human lives... (Explanation of the vote abbreviated in accordance with Rule 137(1) of the Rules of Procedure) Report: Howitt (A5-0249/2003)

Political group: PSE
For many years, I have worked assiduously in Parliament for a Statute for Members and genuinely want it to be possible for such a Statute to enter into force before the next term of office. I note that, unfortunately, the majority of the European Parliament deliberately put the draft Statute into a form that, for understandable reasons, can hardly be approved by the Council. As the Commission observed in its opinion, the provisions concerning Members’ immunity exceed what it is possible to approve in this context. It would be tragic if the Statute were only to enter into force once a new constitutional treaty had entered into force – probably not until 2009 as far as Parliament is concerned. At the same time, an option was approved whereby new Member States might subsequently, during two terms of office, apply other rules. Parliament did not convince the surrounding world that it in actual fact wanted to help bring about a situation in which travel costs would in future be reimbursed on the basis of actual costs. In the vote, Parliament ruled out a state of affairs in which national taxation would be an option for countries that wanted this. If the Statute is to become a reality, Parliament must be prepared to negotiate concerning the final outcome. By voting ‘no’, I wish clearly to express the fact that Parliament is divided and that Parliament’s leaders should negotiate concerning the final outcome. – Turmes report (A5-0136/2003)

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, Commissioner, I am grateful for this question because our group is permanently very concerned not just about the problem of ageing, but also the combination of ageing and depopulation. Europe has an increasingly smaller and older population. It will be hard for us to compete if we do not have people suitable for work. I believe the time is coming when we must consider the introduction of a new criterion if we want possibilities for the future, a new criterion based on productive population density. You are Greek, Commissioner. I have been looking at the map of population density in Europe, I have it here in front of me, and it indicates that more than half of your country, more than half of Greece, has a population of less than 50 inhabitants per square kilometre. They are areas with low population densities. However, what would you think if I told you that, as well as that, half of your population is over 50 years old? So we are facing a situation with practically no future. We must start looking into this problem, which is arising in many regions of Europe, in Spain, in Scotland, in France, in certain regions of Italy and also in Greece. The time is coming for us to begin to consider this concept of productive population density because it is necessary to competitiveness, because furthermore we are facing a repeated problem in Spain which we call ‘the fish that bites its own tail’. We cannot take companies to places where there are no people, where there is no productive workforce, and where the productive workforce does not go because there are no companies. We must find a way of breaking this vicious circle. I will go further: in our region, in Aragón, we have tried to move immigrants to rural areas: Latin Americans, Rumanians, Eastern Europeans. Do you know what is happening? They stay for three, five, six months or a year and then leave, to a city or to the coast. We must find some way to break this vicious circle.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I will first address a word of thanks to you, Commissioner, for your lucid words and your declaration that, in the context of economic and social cohesion, both the new problems of the candidates for accession and the continuing problems of the present 15 Member States are being appropriately taken into account in various regions. Secondly, a word of thanks also for emphasising again that there are no taboos in this discussion. We are at the beginning of this discussion process and, in this discussion, we should explore in depth all the options for auditing the Structural Funds. Holding 27 countries together economically and socially is a quite different matter from maintaining the cohesion of 15 of them. The solid fact is that the accession of 12 new States will substantially increase the disparities in the EU. On the one hand, the new Member States will have to be given priority, whilst on the other, the present beneficiary countries must not be denied a degree of continuity. We are well aware that the Cohesion Fund and the Structural Fund can still only be temporary measures and cannot be made part of the patrimony. However, regions must not lose their Objective 1 status after 2006 solely on the grounds that enlargement has brought an improvement in their relative position and without their having achieved sustainable development. I see the cohesion policy as being credible only if the financial means are apportioned on the basis of objective criteria applicable to all, with the criteria of national and regional prosperity forming the bases. The pending review of European regional policy must therefore throw up some solutions, and that is the whole point of the discussion process that is now beginning – to treat on an equal footing the situations both in the new Member States and in the Objective 1 regions of the present Member States.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, this is clearly a very important subject. Salmon farming has often been criticised in the past for its environmental impact, but only recently have potential health impacts been raised. It is crucial that these be better understood. Health advice given by governments across the EU traditionally highlights the importance of eating more fish. Yet, if risk analysis suggests that consumption of farmed Atlantic salmon poses health risks that detract from the beneficial effect of fish consumption, then we need to know more about that. We need to understand more about it and we need to act on that knowledge. We need to know for certain that farmed salmon has more contaminants than wild fish and that dioxins are among the most toxic chemicals ever created. So far the debate has been dominated by arguments over whether the contamination found in the salmon was legal. What we should be concentrating on is whether the salmon is genuinely safe. That might well mean revisiting the limits that were set for contamination in 2001. I want to get away from the arguments for or against Scottish salmon or any other kind of salmon. These are not very helpful. We should be talking about whether aquaculture itself is providing a viable and environmentally sustainable food for humans, and I would argue that the answer is increasingly looking like 'no'. Also associated with aquaculture is a whole range of other problems, including the spread of disease and parasites to wild fish, the use of fish, fishmeal and fish oil as food with impacts on wild fish stocks, pollution of the sea floor from unconsumed food, the impact on predators when they are killed and the antibiotics used to control the disease. There are some genuinely important issues here that need to be looked at and yet, perversely, governments continue to support aquaculture when, in many ways, they might well be better off putting their time and resources into rehabilitating the natural habitats of salmon so as to allow the wild stocks to recover. This latest health report on salmon should be taken as a wake-up call to change the way we farm fish. I look forward to a Commission revision of the standards based on genuine safety measures, not on allowances for background environmental levels, because health cannot and should not be compromised.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, first of all, following the example of previous speakers, I should like to congratulate our rapporteur, Mr Liese, for the high level of contact which he has maintained, right from the beginning, with all the parties concerned and, of course, with the various nominal rapporteurs, in order to produce this report, which represents an overall balance. This compromise was difficult to achieve, between the advocates of subsidiarity, the supporters of ethics at any price and all those, including myself, who want to respond to the expectations and hopes placed in us by millions of patients in Europe, without, however, hindering the development of the European biotechnology sector. Indeed, thanks to the grafting of corneas, heart valves, bones, tendons and skin, the lives of patients are actually prolonged and improved. Just to give one example, repairing the damage caused by major burns involves nearly twenty thousand European citizens every year, while 60 000 diabetics had to have amputations in 2002 because of the lack of any effective procedure for reconstructing skin. We must be clear about this: all these people awaiting treatment will either not be treated or will be badly treated if tomorrow the European Parliament adopts a moralistic stance and prohibits, directly or indirectly, research into stem cells, embryos and germ gene therapy. That is the reason why the majority of the Liberal group is firmly opposed to a good thirty of the amendments, in particular Amendments Nos 30, 31, 36, 37, 46 and 50, but I do not propose to list all of them here. One fundamental reminder is necessary: we are concerned here with a public-health issue, based on Article 152 of the Treaty. It is therefore a matter of quality criteria, approval standards, qualifications, staff training, traceability tests, and the setting up of a European network bringing together the registers of national tissue banks. This is what lies at the heart of the proposal, and I have heard very little about it, since ethical issues have overtaken it. Nevertheless, at the committee stage we did reach a compromise on organ donations, on the highly sensitive question of voluntary and non-remunerated donation, on umbilical cord blood donations and on fair access to the various treatments for all patients. We are determined not to let all these advances be reduced to nothing here because some people are confused between the European Parliament and the Council of Europe. It is not Europe’s objective or ambition to harmonise ethics, and having a conscience in matters of science has never treated anyone. For all these reasons, the Liberal group, in self-defence, reserves the right to vote against this report and to go back to the Commission’s balanced proposal.

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, I congratulate Mr Stevenson on the report he has presented and which deserves our support. As the document we are now debating states, the European Union’s current rate of self-sufficiency in vegetable proteins has fallen to below 23%, as other Members have already said and which becomes all the more serious when you realise that, at world level, plant protein production has increased by 60% in the last fifteen years and is largely concentrated in three countries. It is, therefore, hard to understand the Commission position of insisting on depending almost solely on the world market, with the aggravating circumstance that this supply is concentrated in three countries, and I would remind you that one of these is the United States of America. I would also take this opportunity to remind you of that country’s agricultural policy, which is not only in competition with the European Union but which is also protectionist. This fact puts the European Union in an extremely vulnerable position and is not a sustainable response to our needs in terms of plant proteins, as the rapporteur points out in his report. It is, therefore, important that we encourage the development of plant protein production in the European Union, which will help to make us less dependent on imports and to ensure the multifunctionality of Community agriculture, introducing other species and varieties of grain legumes which have inexplicably been excluded from Community support and from the improvement plans. I would remind you of yellow lupin and other species that have traditionally been used for animal feed, particularly in the Mediterranean countries, and which have not benefited from Community support. Hence the importance of granting rotational aid to farmers to encourage the production of plant proteins in the cereal crop cycle, using fallow land, as we have advocated in other reports, and also the need to terminate the Blair House agreements, or, at the very least renegotiate them. It is hard to understand why no effort has yet been made to renegotiate them, in the aim of terminating them, thereby making greater direct aid possible for the protection of proteins in the European Union. We believe it is equally important for the Commission to approve the additional aid for plant proteins – beans, peas and lupins – not covered by the Blair House agreements and we support the terms referred to in the report by the our rapporteur. We hope, then, that the Commission will take account of these proposals, whilst respecting the principle of monitoring production and the positive effects of these, in both the socio-economic and the environmental fields. I would also remind you that now, when it comes to revising the CAP, neither this report nor the proposals that will surely be approved here in the European Parliament must be forgotten.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, it was splendid to hear the Commissioner’s criticism of the Council when it comes to foreign policy. When we see a dictatorship in the Balkans superseded by the hope of democracy, we cannot lock ourselves into disputes about the Budget. Instead, the budget frameworks, – the so-called financial perspective – must be adjusted. We cannot simply take all the money from other areas of foreign policy. We have already this year exceeded the foreign policy budget by 400 million. Let us now be far-sighted enough to give the Commission the opportunity to plan ahead. Circumstances have also revealed the need for the so-called ‘rapid reaction facility’, as proposed by the Commission. The money must not be placed in the reserves with the risk of the Council’s blocking it, something which would of course lead to the Commission’s not being able to plan ahead. Remember Romano Prodi’s major speech in this Chamber a few weeks ago. We shall support his and Chris Patten’s attempt to strengthen the Commission’s effectiveness by means of parliamentary scrutiny and the necessary parliamentary control to which the Council and Mr Solana are not of course subject. I should therefore ask both the Council and the Committee on Budgets here in Parliament to think in terms of foreign policy and not only in terms of budget strategy when they concern themselves with foreign policy.

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, Commissioner, I note that a lot of the speeches here have been by Dutch speakers, but that is perhaps no coincidence, as there is a hit song in the Low Countries that goes something like this: ‘I tear through the Brenner Pass in my 30-tonne diesel lorry, far from home but on top of the world’. It makes no mention of the people of Austria and the Alpine region. Whether or not they were on top of the world plays no part whatsoever in this song, but it does in this report. This report epitomises European transport policy. Its significance goes beyond Austria and even the Alpine region as a whole. It is a tool in the hands of sustainable development in European transport policy. For this reason, the Group of the , via Amendments Nos 19, 20, and 21, is calling for a quick, lasting and comprehensive solution to the ecological, economic, social and safety problems which the traffic through the Alps has been causing for decades and of which the European Union is aware. The end of Austria’s ecopoint system is only acceptable if another kind of protection is brought in for the whole of the Alpine region and not just for Austria, one which has its basis in the Alpine Convention. No time vacuum should arise as regards this protection. There must also be some restriction of the number of lorries passing through the Alps. Without a clear target, there is little point to all of this. We are therefore calling for the imposition of a permanent 8% limit on growth compared to the figure for 1991. We are unable to endorse this report until a solution is found in the medium term for the Alpine region as a whole.

Political group: Verts-ALE