GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Mr President. I would like to join in the praise that many Members have given to Mr Seguro and Mr Méndez de Vigo. I share Mr Corbett’s view that if the rapporteurs had not done such a good job then Parliament would in all probability have recommended voting against Nice. Despite the fact that I share the criticism that has been advanced, I believe that a no vote would have been much worse than a yes. The reason for this is that the important enlargement process would then have been delayed, which is not something that I want to see happen. I agree with much of the criticism. The major critical viewpoints concern the fact that following Nice the Treaty is more difficult to understand, which also affects our citizens’ ability to participate in the Europe debate. It is a difficult treaty that is difficult to understand. Moreover, it risks becoming ineffective through the fact that we have made it more difficult to make decisions by qualified majority. It is true that more areas are covered by qualified majority voting, but these are not that important. The really important areas were not brought into this form of decision-making, which is unfortunate now that the Union is being enlarged. This is something that we must change. We need more decisions by qualified majority and codetermination rights for Parliament. The second form of criticism concerns openness and the way in which the Treaty was negotiated. I have heard that some have likened the negotiations to the choice of a pope, with people having shut themselves away in a room and then come out with a compromise. No outsiders were allowed to participate in the process. Let us not do this again. Let us start the convention, and let it become the starting point for the next Intergovernmental Conference. After all, it does not mean that we must not carry on national debate with organisations and others. In this connection I also think that it is important that we accept our responsibility as politicians. We must not make the institutional debate the main issue; we must start from the objective questions: What do we actually want to do with the EU? How is this to be done? What tools shall we use? We must start with the objective debate.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, a complaint and three messages. The complaint is that we are experts in devaluing important debates. This is the most important debate in terms of the European Parliament’s work over the next year and we are dealing with it as if it were a question of procedure and a rubber-stamping debate. I believe that this is absurd and things should not be done in this way. As for the messages; firstly, I would address the Commission. Mr President of the Commission, in December we criticised you, but now we must welcome the Commission’s efforts and I am quite happy to say that the Vice-President, Mrs de Palacio, has actively contributed to our reaching an agreement which makes it possible for there to be a legislative programme and a work programme. Please carry on in this way. Specifically, you have asked us to support you in relation to having more civil servants and more resources in order to deal with enlargement. I would remind you that Parliament already indicated in Agenda 2000 that enlargement could not take place without amending the forecasts for 2000. You have added Afghanistan and other priorities. The Council should be hearing this because it is the Council which is most intransigent. No representative of the Council is present. I have noticed that Mr Poettering, in a display of generosity, has not applied the Poettering doctrine; I imagine that if the Secretary of State comes, he will apply it; he will say that it should be a Minister. But, in any event, it is important that the Council should also hear this message from the Commission. You have our support. Mr President, I am not going to go into detail on each of the issues because they are all very important and there is a degree of convergence. I will make a final point. In relation to the Convention, we are in agreement; I also welcome the fact that you said it was a joint initiative of Parliament and the Commission. This morning I read some headlines in a prominent Italian newspaper which said that it had been you alone. I am delighted that you have countered what the Italian press has said by pointing out that it has been a joint effort. Mr President, Parliament wanted something like the Convention before the Charter of Fundamental Rights. It wanted it afterwards and it wants it now. I believe this is very important. Mr President of the Commission, you are the guardians of the Treaties, and my specific question is, are you prepared to exercise your powers of initiative in the Convention in order to preserve and strengthen the Community method?

Political group: PSE
Commissioner, Mr President, it is indeed an ill wind that blows nobody any good, and Mrs McKenna’s report comes at an opportune moment, even if she did start to work on it before the Erika disaster. How many times have we expressed our feelings, within this chamber, regarding the implications of this disaster, and how many times have we debated the issue of the European Union and the Member States’ inability to respond quickly to the expectations of victims and to react to the ecological damage? Parliament cannot today fail to respond to public opinion, which is continually urging us to issue a strong, positive message. Let us not miss the opportunity which this report affords. The problems caused six months ago by the Erika, for example, have still not been even partially solved. Apparently, nothing has yet been solved, and this is the lesson we must learn from this disaster. We are aware, moreover, that containers loaded with radioactive materials are sailing the seas from The Hague to Japan. Let us not wait until a fresh disaster occurs, this time a nuclear one, before doing something, because we know how oil reacts but we do not yet know how radioactive waste reacts when it is spilt into the depths. Mrs McKenna’s report offers us an opportunity to include radioactive substances. Let us please, ladies and gentlemen, not hesitate for even a moment. Let us avoid a disaster and vote in favour of the amendment to include nuclear substances.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, Commissioner, although Commisioner Wallström is not with us today, I would like to start by saying, on behalf of the European Parliament’s delegation to the 8th Conference of the Parties to the Climate Change Convention, how much we appreciate her cooperation with delegations from the House at the various conferences she has attended. We certainly missed her in New Delhi. I should like to make a few points regarding that conference. The European Union must continue to take the lead in the international fight against climate change. It must therefore promote political debate on objectives for beyond 2012 at the earliest opportunity. COP8 had seemed a good opportunity to consolidate decisions on implementation of the Kyoto Protocol taken earlier at Bonn and Marrakech. Unfortunately, the opportunity was missed. No broad debate was launched on the main issues for the second period. Significant progress on technical matters was made at the COP8, however. These related in particular to mechanisms for clean development, reporting, and review procedures. On the other hand, progress on a political level was disappointing. As the Commissioner stated, attempts to water down the specific features of the Kyoto Protocol by means of the much broader concept of sustainable development won the day. In this connection it has to be said that the attitude of the United States delegation was not very constructive. It consistently avoided references to deadlines and specific objectives. The members of our delegation all agreed that ratification of the Protocol by States which have not yet done so must be speeded up. We had in mind Russia in particular. If Russia ratified the Protocol it would come into force. It is however worrying that Russia maintained a non-committed attitude throughout the conference. Regarding the position of developing countries, concern over inadequate financial support from developed countries was expressed. Transfer of technology to facilitate the adoption of measures to adapt to climate change and mitigate its effects was also deemed inadequate. Further, we feel we should consider the possibility of setting up an interparliamentary committee to deal with India in particular. India is home to a thousand million people. It has an emerging economy which is growing continuously and its Parliament has expressed a clear political will to cooperate with the European Parliament. Finally, I should emphasise that there was constructive cooperation with the Council and the Commission. The latter both recognised the essential role of delegations from Parliament in conferences of this sort. It is precisely for that reason that we believe it is not acceptable for our delegations to be excluded from coordination meetings. We therefore request that delegations from Parliament be admitted to these meetings in future, at least as observers.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, may I, too, congratulate the Irish presidency on the way it has handled the IGC negotiations. The Taoiseach referred just now to the importance of give and take in these negotiations. I return to the issue of give and take in relation to one specific point – the budgetary powers of the European Parliament. The text of the Convention involved a bit of give and take. We, as a Parliament, have given up our right jointly to decide by interinstitutional agreement with the Council on the financial perspectives and simply, instead, give our assent to those perspectives. In exchange, we have taken the right to have the final say within those ceilings and within a margin of manoeuvre on every item of expenditure – what was previously obligatory and non-obligatory. That is a balanced, fair package with give and take. Some finance ministers are arguing only for take on their side and no give. They would reduce Parliament to giving just an opinion on the financial perspectives and they would also place limits on the other aspects of our budgetary powers. That, frankly, is not acceptable to the European Parliament. It would be one of our red lines – we, too, can have red lines. I turn to what 'Harry Pottering' said on behalf of the Group. He said that his Group is altogether in favour of the Constitution. I am delighted to hear that in his Group, the British Conservatives are in favour of the Constitution, because that is not what some of them said in a debate of the House of Commons yesterday, nor what Jonathan Evans said in a debate with me on BBC television last Friday. They are going to oppose the Constitution, indeed, they even announced in the House of Commons that they will use every parliamentary device they can to thwart it. They are also stirring up scare stories about the Constitution. They are alleging that it creates a centralised superstate with all powers handed over to Brussels, where Brussels will be able to overrule national policy in every area of governance. We, in this House, know that is not true. They are telling fibs and trying to stir up the Eurosceptism that is latent in much of the British press and in parts of public opinion to their electoral advantage. We cannot let them get away with this. We must have a debate based on the facts and not the myths. I hope that 'Harry Pottering' will sort out his Group – wave his magic wand, perhaps – and ask those Members who apparently want to belong to his very federalist group in the European Parliament to draw the consequences of that. Under our Rules of Procedure, you join a political group on the basis of political affinity. I wonder what affinity there is between the British Conservatives and the bulk of the PPE on this fundamental question. There seems to be none, and I invite the to have a vigorous internal debate on this matter.

Political group: PSE
There is a great deal of confusion about the phenomenon of terrorism. Most terrorists do not become terrorists out of choice, but are forced to resort to extreme and unacceptable measures due to the lack of understanding shown by leading politicians for their oppositional role and their conflicting viewpoints. Some latterly well-respected leaders, such as those of Israel, Palestine, South Africa and many former colonies, started their political careers as terrorists. Terrorism is fought effectively not by creating an even greater lack of understanding and trust, but by ensuring that the problems to which terrorists want to draw attention are resolved swiftly and peacefully. Politicians who see the risk of terrorism in anything and everything, run the risk of ending up in a police state which lacks essential rights of freedom and democracy. This, in turn, leads to a tougher political climate, which creates a new breeding ground for terrorism. Respect for the law weakens when people notice that they are no longer protected from random arrests, lengthy custody and controversial surrender. This also applies if oppositional non-terrorists are bullied or if people are imprisoned for actions which are not punishable in their own countries. As long as there are insufficient guarantees to prevent these phenomena, a European regulation is counterproductive in the real fight against terrorism, in my view.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, it is scandalous that President Bush is boycotting the Kyoto Protocol. Major American oil concerns, such as Exxon, Texaco and Chevron have helped Bush into the saddle. Their hand in this boycott is obvious. Bush is not only thick, he is as thick as two short planks. The EU must respond by ratifying the Kyoto Protocol before the summer of 2002. More than 20 countries have already done just that. The EU can and must ratify Kyoto, together with our Eastern European partners, Russia, Japan and countries such as Brazil. These 55 countries combined account for 55% of emissions. Even without the US, the Kyoto Protocol will be legally valid. Worldwide negotiations have taken place for nearly ten years. The time has come for action and deeds. Europe must take the lead with energy savings and renewable energy. The new technologies – wind power, biomass and solar energy – will also yield economic benefits for Europe. Windmills are Denmark’s second export product. European actions should persuade the developing countries to accept the climate objectives in time. Those same developing countries already made it clear at the failed climate summit in The Hague that they did not want nuclear energy, even if it were subsidised. European and American citizens can break Bush’s Kyoto boycott by boycotting fuel and diesel from Exxon, Texaco and Chevron. The political pleas by Commissioner Wallström and the troika were to no avail. The majority of MEPs refuse, on principle, to sign such a boycott. But MEPs from Sweden and the Netherlands have in the past called for a boycott of the apartheid regime in South Africa. Citizens, show your anger and boycott Bush. Boycott Exxon, Texaco and Chevron. Capital punishment in the US may be ethically unjustified, but in the final analysis it is a matter for the American people. However, the demise of the climate which Bush is bringing about for the whole world is unacceptable.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, I am pleased that the Commission brought forward the consultation document. It would have been useful, however, to have brought it forward before Mr Cercas drew up the report, but I am very pleased that we were able to table oral amendments. Nevertheless this is not the ideal way of working and I would like to register that point. I tabled a number of amendments, a lot of them with the Group, and some of my own. The main point – and I am very pleased the Commissioner touched on this – is that the individual opt-out should be kept, but that it should be truly voluntary and measures should be taken to tackle any abuse. But as Mr Bushill-Matthews said, that abuse is not as widespread in the UK as the rapporteur leads us to believe. Indeed, as Mr Bushill-Matthews and the rapporteur have repeatedly said, the authors of the research – Barnard, Deakin and Hobbs – stated that the abuse was widespread. Those people have distanced themselves from what you have written in your report and indeed would distance themselves from your statement today. To answer Mr Hughes' point, one of the reasons for maintaining the opt-out is that in the UK we do not have collective agreements. That is one of the main reasons we use the opt-out. Other Member States use derogations because they have collective agreements. Decisions can be made between both sides of industry: trade unions and employers will get together and decide what they want to do on the Working Time Directive. But because we do not have that – at least not to any great extent – we need the flexibility for our businesses to be able to cope. Wages are not a competence of the EU, nor should they be. We should not be discussing pay. But workers in the UK are on low wages, even though we have a national minimum wage. They quite often add to their take-home pay by doing overtime. If we get rid of the opt-out, there will be many cases of workers not being able to do overtime and therefore not getting a reasonable pay level. We are not the only country that uses it either: Germany, France, the Netherlands, Spain and Luxembourg are all either using it or going to use it in the health or catering industries. Another problem is the length of reference period. Tourism and agriculture have a particular problem because of different working patterns and because of the times of year that they work. The Commission must also look at the SIMAP and Jaeger judgments. It is very important that we do that on health and come forward with proposals. I hope enough MEPs will join us tomorrow when we vote, in particular those Labour MEPs who voted against us in committee and against the UK Labour Government.

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, the European Parliament should support the process of decentralising the Commission services so as to bring the European Union closer to its partners. We are therefore in favour of increasing the number of delegations and increasing their staff numbers in line with their increased responsibilities. However, cooperation on development should remain the priority of the delegations in developing countries, in particular as regards the planning of aid programmes. It is important that the representatives who negotiate on behalf of the Commission should be on the spot and in direct contact with the real situation. In order to do this they should develop relations with the local NGOs and with society in general, so that they can get to know and integrate the priority needs of communities, and not only those of governments in these indicative programmes. In addition to consultation, we must also increase the number of local agents in the delegations. It is vitally important that the delegation staff should have an extremely good knowledge of local conditions and should be able to speak regional languages, so as to maintain a permanent link with the various levels of the local community. In addition, the delegations must propose special training programmes for local experts so as to encourage their recruitment. Finally, it is urgently necessary to recruit staff who are qualified in social and environmental matters, which have so far been the poor relations of the aid and development programmes drawn up in Brussels.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, with all due respect to my colleagues in this Parliament, I think that it is a little odd – I thought I would just say this, looking at the list of speakers – that we are having what is almost an all-Dutch round on the Moluccas. Of course, there is every reason to say something about the Moluccas. The pictures and, still more, the reports that we are receiving are, after all, very reminiscent of what happened in East Timor. But I must say that I have my doubts about this round. Last time, we talked about East Timor and today, we are talking about the Moluccas. We might talk about yet another part of Indonesia tomorrow, for the problem is not confined to the Moluccas. I have a problem with the way in which we are handling this subject; that is to say, I do not think Parliament should discuss individual incidents, for I fear that this great island kingdom will be the scene of many more such incidents where national and religious factors are intertwined. What actually needs to happen is for Parliament to ask itself how, in any event, it should deal with the big problem of Indonesia. The Moluccan situation is not an isolated case. The Moluccas form part of a great State comprising many nationalities and religious groupings. It is a State that is at risk of falling apart and where tensions are running high. I would be very much in favour of having a big debate of the kind I have just described at some stage in the future, rather than going from incident to incident all the time.

Political group: Verts-ALE
I would thank the Commission very much for its exhaustive and constructive answer. I would also thank the Commission for its proposal to the effect that the derogation on cadmium in fertilisers should be extended. This derogation is very important to Sweden and also to other countries. I obtained the impression that the special derogation rule mentioned last in the answer means that we have a sort of guarantee against having to receive fertilisers containing cadmium for a possible interim period before the new extension comes into force. Is this view correct?

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, it is important that we have transparent, workable directives. It is important to give a clear lead to our local authorities or to our public – in some cases private – utilities. Above all, it is important that we give a clear lead to the workforces operating within those contracting authorities. The Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market unfortunately did not provide that transparent, workable directive. What we have is two directives, which are not in line with each other. In fact, in certain areas, they are actually contradictory. The Legal Affairs Committee missed an opportunity to advance the social provisions to workers. It has advanced – to give it credit – the case of workers with disabilities. But we could have gone further. That is why I am reintroducing my Amendment No 166, which was adopted at first reading by a large majority. Now certain groups seem to have gone cold on it. Amendment No 166 to Article 53(1) and (2) reintroduces the flexibility contracting authorities require when deciding on awarding contracts, not just being bound by the lowest price. It should be made clear to all those companies that intend to tender for these contracts that they have to introduce social and environmental conditions for their own workforces or they will not get the contracts.

Political group: PSE