GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Madam President, Commissioner, I too endorse the words of sympathy addressed to the Spanish population and, above all, to the relatives of the victims. I think that this Parliament cannot condemn such acts of violence enough. This year’s annual update of the coordination regulation is a little unusual, for we are not only discussing technical changes, but also attempting to formulate a coherent position for non-exportable benefits. I am pleased to concur with the words of Mrs Hermange, who notes that the Court of Justice has always stressed that the exceptions to the principle of non-exportability must be interpreted to the letter. In other words, these pertain much more to measures of social security that are payable to all citizens within the territory. The Commission too is in favour of a strict interpretation, and that is why I support the proposal that is now before us in Annex IIA. I should, nevertheless, like to make two crucial observations. First of all, an overall agreement is to be reached shortly about the modernisation of the coordination regulation, including an agreement about non-exportable benefits. Word has already reached me that serious attempts are being made in the Council to extend the list of non-exportable benefits considerably, thus undermining the coordination regulation. By approving these annexes today, we have to send a message to the Council that Parliament will not tolerate this. Secondly, it is interesting if a system is constructed logically, but we should also realise that changes affect real people. Certainly if they concern regulations that have been laid down in order to guarantee people a minimum income, we have to consider very carefully what impact changes have on a country’s citizens, and particularly if there is no analogous regulation in place in other countries. I believe therefore, Commissioner, that it is appalling to have to conclude that, yet again, no such verification has taken place. For years, this Parliament has asked for the marginal effect to be verified, and what is happening now demonstrates what a fair question this is. By adding the Dutch Extra Allowance Act, which was included on the list with good reason in my opinion, nearly 200 Belgian border workers will be losing their extra allowance. Some of those will be compensated on the basis of the Belgian Social Security Act, but others will lose part of their income and that is why, Commissioner, I urge you to mount a thorough investigation into the effects on those involved, if need be via the EURES networks. Furthermore, it is necessary for the Member States responsible, in this case Belgium and the Netherlands, to agree on transitional periods and compensation measures, possibly by means of a bilateral agreement. The amendment that is being tabled in the plenary meeting today must be supported come what may. Along with my Belgian and Dutch fellow MEPs, I intend to write to the ministers responsible in order to find solutions for the people who risk losing part of their income and, consequently, falling below the poverty line.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, Commissioner, it is because of my experience in the Balkans, when I was there on duty, that I call on you today to support the efforts of the Secretary-General of the United Nations to bring those responsible for the genocide in Cambodia to trial before an independent court under the aegis of the United Nations. I do not think that reconciliation is possible after such murderous tragedies, unless those responsible for starting them are brought to trial and sentenced. Nor do I think that the people who were their victims can give them a fair trial. I became convinced of this in Sarajevo when I had to negotiate the periodic exchanges of prisoners which accompanied each successive ceasefire agreement, none of which unfortunately lasted, between the parties to the conflict. Every time, just as the exchange was about to take place, we found men missing from the meticulously drawn up lists. Every time, when we asked why, the reply was the same, ‘We cannot release him: he is a war criminal’. In the emotion, pain and fury of the agreements, it was impossible to break the vicious circle of blood and vengeance. If we want to help the Cambodians with the task of reconciliation on which they have embarked, we need to try and sentence those responsible at the highest level and thus exonerate the simple underlings and all those who were willingly or forcibly dragged along behind them. I expect Ta Mok and his main lieutenants to be tried and sentenced by the establishment of a tribunal whose impartiality is guaranteed by the United Nations. This will be the only way for the Cambodians to pardon those who simply followed them and to achieve lasting peace. (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE
We voted in favour of the report as a whole because we believe that the EU should, for example, be able to accede to the European Convention on Human Rights, something that requires the EU to be given legal personality. We believe that a change of this kind can, in itself, be made while retaining the existing decision-making models and institutional structure. We do not therefore believe that the three pillars which at present constitute the EC and the EU should be combined in a single pillar. The pillar structure reflects the political distinction made between supranational and intergovernmental areas of cooperation, and the fact that the pillar structure gives rise to a complicated legal situation is not a good enough reason for abolishing it.

Political group: PSE
Madam President, I should like to convey our support and sympathy for the people of Paraguay in the light of another attempted military coup. That is all I wished to say. I should like the position of this House to be made very clear.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, smoking is unhealthy and smokers should be aware of this. Sound and clear warnings about all kinds of diseases and disorders are therefore, in our opinion, a matter of greatest importance. I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the rapporteur on the dynamism and perseverance he has displayed in this connection. The European Union too, should know that smoking is unhealthy. In fact, it should put its money where its mouth is. The Tobacco Directive is a good opportunity to demonstrate that the internal market is not just about the free movement of goods. We have to attach clear health requirements to the goods within the internal market. It is not just the tar and nicotine yields which are at issue here, but also mainly additives. Additives which encourage addiction should be banned at the earliest opportunity, as far as I am concerned. The other aspect of the Union policy is the issue of tobacco subsidies. It would indicate a lack of consistency if we continued subsidising tobacco products in the knowledge that smoking is unhealthy. If phasing out subsidies has social and financial implications for the tobacco growers in the poorest regions, we are all jointly responsible for finding a solution. Smoking is unhealthy. We are all agreed on this, but should we be sharing this with the entire world? This is one of the most interesting and principle questions in today’s debate. It would be a considerable change in policy if we were to impose European standards on other countries. If this change were extended to other fields, it could mean that European companies would only produce for the European market. This would, as such, lead to a certain degree of regionalisation of the world economy, a regionalisation which, in the case of the tobacco industry, would be at the expense of the position of Europe-based companies. The question is whether we want this. To impose standards on other countries can come across as presumptuous, moralistic or patronising. After all, other countries can set their own standards which industry has to comply with. A sound approach, however, would be to make the European standard compulsory in the case of export to countries where such standards are lacking. In this way, we would at least avoid other countries, especially Third-World countries, being lumbered with second-rate cigarettes.

Political group: PSE
The European Union must indeed take the lead in the WTO negotiations about the liberalisation of trade in services and the achievement of a general GATS agreement. These negotiations are certainly more than crucial for Europe. First of all, the fact is that services are forming an ever more significant part of world trade, 24% of which, as we know, is accounted for by the European Union. Furthermore, the European Union is currently the biggest importer and the biggest exporter of services in the world. Another reason to take these GATS negotiations in hand is naturally – or unfortunately, I should say – the continuing slowdown of economic growth. We must therefore concentrate more than ever before on the trade in services, and this once again applies in particular to the European Union where services represent more than two-thirds of the total gross domestic product. We must not, however, negotiate solely on the basis of our own interests but also on the basis of the interests of other countries and other parts of the world. Liberalisation means we must also open our borders more to services from third countries and thus contribute to their further development.

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, I suspect that in my group as in most others there is a wide range of views, from people who think that smoking is a matter for consenting adults, largely but not necessarily in private, to those who think that sellers of tobacco should suffer capital punishment and that those who smoke should be incarcerated in secure hospitals. But all of us would agree that the primary purpose of this measure is to protect children and to deter them from a habit that may kill them. The best way is not to worry about maximum levels of content but to worry about minimum levels, so that the first taste for a child is so foul that they do not seek to repeat the experience. Certainly we should support the ban on the use of labels such as mild and light or anything that suggests that the product is safer. The truth is that people inhale more deeply to get the taste and so can actually damage themselves more. Such labels are deceptive and dangerous and should be banned. Otherwise labelling is of marginal and temporary impact, whatever the picture, whatever the words, and there is some danger of a cigarette card mentality emerging, with the different messages becoming collector's items. The export issue is probably the most difficult. It is one for balanced judgment: on the one hand, it is odd to say that what is not good for our citizens is okay to export to other countries; but on the other hand, it is presumptuous of us to say what standards other countries should adopt and on balance I come down in favour of the second approach. Lastly, we have the issue of subsidies for growing tobacco, paid by our taxpayers to people in our Europe. It is immoral and obscene that we allow subsidies for growing something that we know will kill and will cost us billions of euros in health care for smokers. Our governments must stop this and we must stop them supporting it.

Political group: PPE-DE
Madam President, there are two reasons as to why we are not debating the Venezuela issue. Firstly, there is the respect we have for our own Rules of Procedure. We are no longer in earnest about these debates on topical and urgent subjects of major importance, nor is our attitude to be taken seriously. We decided in the AFET committee that we would adhere strictly to Rule 50 and Annex 3 of our Rules of Procedure, according to which an issue of this kind, i.e. an event that happened months ago, can no longer be dealt with as an urgent procedure, even if it is, of course, very important. Secondly, demands are made in this motion that have been neither considered nor discussed in budgetary terms. Hence we are calling for this issue to be withdrawn and replaced by an issue that is genuinely urgent and highly topical, i.e. the attempted coup in Paraguay and the arrest of the former rebel General Oviedo. (Parliament approved the proposal) (The order of business was adopted thus amended)(1) ***

Political group: PSE
I, like other members of the Conservative British Delegation, voted today for a limited extension of the current EU sugar regime in the Daul report. We all wish for and are committed to a comprehensive overhaul of the common agricultural policy, but this is more likely to happen in a thorough and systematic way if reforms of other sectors are considered as part of a general package in 2006, and besides, there is no absolute guarantee that an earlier ending of the sugar regime would necessarily deliver immediate cheaper sugar prices to the consumer. Moreover, the current crisis facing our farmers in Britain requires as a priority that this reform be postponed for the time being in order to prevent further deterioration of their economic circumstances and preserve stability of our rural communities.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, on behalf of the Group, I wish to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Foster, for the excellent way in which she has drafted the proposal with regard to this important matter. We still have a number of unresolved issues before us on which we should try to achieve a balanced result which suits everyone. As has already been said here before, the Council, for its part, has not done its homework sufficiently well and has not considered or discussed Parliament’s proposals at all thoroughly. It is therefore reasonable for our committee to propose that some key amendments be revised even though we are now on the home straight. Our group has tabled Amendment No 34 to Article 4, which concerns legal provisions for small airports. Flexibility is needed here. The amendment makes the wording more specific in such a way that at the same time it increases flexibility with regard to the types of aircraft being used. I would also ask Members to consider whether that form of wording achieves a compromise that suits us all with regard to solving the problem of small volumes of air traffic without incurring enormous costs. Secondly, I want to emphasise the importance of Amendment No 8, which concerns announced inspections. It is important. If there is a constant threat of an EU inspection, standards tend to be kept up. However, if an inspection had to be announced, everything necessary to improve security for air travel would not be done beforehand. In addition we have to ensure that matters drawn attention to after the inspection are actually put right. Our group has worked on the assumption that it must be taken into account in dealing with these matters what it is reasonable to do at EU level and what it is better to leave to the Member States’ own discretion, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity. For that reason we are not very keen on amendments that mean increased costs without, however, significantly improving security. Action taken must be in proportion to what is reasonable for each country. The same goes for monitoring, where it is only sensible to take account of the particular circumstances that apply.

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, I believe that the approach of this directive is out of date. That is confirmed by the Commission's recently published Thematic Strategy on Recycling. This now says: 'Current directives foresee that all Member States should achieve the same recycling targets as this one does. However, the question is legitimate whether this uniformity in targets is most effective, both from an environmental and economic point of view. It might be better to have an overall EU recycling target at EU level and let market forces determine which recycling facilities can achieve the objective in the most cost-effective manner.' How right that is! We know that there are some Member States that want to go beyond the proposed targets. Others will find them impossible to meet. So why are we ploughing on with a strategy that is already being undermined by the practicalities? The United Kingdom has a problem with this. For many years we have relied on landfill. Our geology favoured that. We consequently had no particular incentive to press ahead with recycling, as some countries did. We are now moving as fast as we can, but there is no way that we can move as fast as the rapporteur's amendments prescribe. To do that would mean spending EUR 1.8 billion on recycling packaging waste alone, and packaging waste is only 6% of the waste going to landfill in Britain. This would mean that we would have to tell British local councils to initiate policies to remove packaging from the household waste stream. That takes time and money, Mrs Corbey. Maybe such policies are not the most pressing priorities of my country's local authorities. Maybe their priority is financing home helps, Meals on Wheels for the elderly or services of another kind. If subsidiarity is to mean anything at all, such priorities should be for local decision. How can I defend a situation where a combination of continental MEPs press for changes that will supply an imperative to British local authorities that a majority of British MEPs have not voted for?

Political group: PPE-DE
Our economic system has shown its limitations. The financial sector is not in phase with the real economy and too often upsets it. Our high rates of unemployment, the marked increase in the gap between North and South and the increase in poverty on a worldwide scale are evidence of this sad reality. International capital movements are destabilising factors. That is why we must seek measures to tax transactions on the foreign exchange markets in order to reduce their volatility and to curb short-term speculative transactions. The fact that a tax such as that envisaged by James Tobin, the recipient of the Nobel Prize for Economics, would represent a tiny blip in the excessively well-oiled machinery of speculation and the considerable amounts of money that it could generate are valid arguments in favour of its implementation, especially when you realise that even by adopting a very low rate (about 0.05%), it would bring in almost F 600 billion per year, according to the most conservative estimates! In this context, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) proposes that this sum be paid back to the states where the tax would be collected and to a redistribution fund for the poorest countries. The wealth recovered in this way from the large international capitalists would be redirected to the people and could form a considerable lever to achieve development for the poorest countries. We would finally have arrived at a situation where solidarity took the place of selfishness. For all these reasons I voted in favour of this resolution and I am very pleased that the House has now dealt with this subject, at the risk of annoying the unscrupulous speculators whose actions destabilise the most vulnerable economies, and sometimes even our whole system, as can be seen from the recent financial crises in south-east Asia.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the restrictions on freedom of opinion and religion in Vietnam have assumed alarming proportions. Protestants, Buddhists and the members of the Hoa Hoa and Cao Dai groups are being persecuted, threatened and arrested for practising their faith openly. Church dignitaries are being placed under house arrest for years at a time. Information is being deliberately suppressed on a massive scale. For over a year, there has been a directive expressly prohibiting citizens from receiving satellite television broadcasts, and the Ministry of Information is harassing the owners of Internet cafés to log the on-line activities of their customers. The number of journalists and dissidents being intimidated and arrested is steadily mounting. Vietnam has signed the 1996 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which was sponsored by the United Nations. Yet national decrees are being adopted to circumvent this voluntary commitment by the back door, enabling penalties to be imposed on anyone who allegedly poses a threat to national security. The Group of the European People’s Party calls on the Vietnamese Government to fulfil its obligations under international law, and to tolerate and guarantee full freedom of belief and opinion at last. Persecution, harassment and imprisonment of believers and regime critics must stop, and the free flow of information must finally be guaranteed. When human rights are violated on a sustained basis, the sovereignty of the states simply remains on paper, further proof that such governments lack something that is essential to act on a truly sovereign basis. Unless Parliament's demands are met in the near future, there is only one option: that will be for the European Union to suspend its financial support to Vietnam. I very much hope, Commissioner Wallström, that the Commission will endorse this position.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, first of all I should like to mention that two years ago the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy asked me to produce a report on the relations of the European Union with Belarus, and I confess that I should very much like to be able to finish it as soon as possible and in a positive fashion. My visits to Belarus on several occasions have left me with a pessimistic, hopeless image. It is an authoritarian, personality-centred regime, in which the opposition has no chance to express itself. The opposition ranges from democratic communists to Christian democrats via social democrats, within a framework of a lack of freedom, as I have said repeatedly. The constant violation of human rights is also very worrying. I therefore think that the European Commission, the European Union, the Council, Parliament, all have to give a clear signal, together with the OSCE and the Council of Europe, for the Belarus government to adopt democratic rules and give some hope to its people.

Political group: GUE-NGL