GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
The question that is being raised, in Portugal as in other countries, concerns the integration and coherence of high-speed links with the remainder of the rail network, forming a coherent web of access for populations, ensuring connections with the regions of the country and other countries, and contributing to economic, social and territorial cohesion. Therefore, alongside the TGV, it is essential to finish work on modernising the national network, with substantial increases in speeds, new signalling, electrification, duplication of congested sections, automatic control systems, substantial improvements in station quality and functionality, and the purchase of rolling stock that can adapt to different gauges. The Commission proposal continues the communication on investing in networks and knowledge with a view to growth and employment. In Portugal, however, while investment is made in the TGV, now included in the ‘Quick Start’ package, preparations are under way to dismantle Bombadier, a highly specialised national company that is ready for this challenge. Many TGV projects included in this package by the Council are due for completion roughly at the time proposed by the Commission for the liberalisation of international passenger transport. This would be funny if it were not an example of contradictions, whereby what prevails is always what is least useful to the populations, always to the detriment of public service. In this explanation of vote, I must insist on the absolute need for the projects and measures to be assessed in terms of the indispensable linkage between national policies and the trans-European networks.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should first and foremost like to congratulate Mrs Keßler on her two reports. I would like to quote a few excerpts from a recent interview which was published recently in a Dutch magazine. International organised crime is more successful, more powerful and more dangerous than ever. The judiciary is meanwhile losing virtually all of its grip on major, transnational crime across the world. Whilst drugs dealers, human traffickers and arms dealers enjoy the full benefits of globalisation, the judiciary remains hopelessly caught behind its own national boundaries. This will be the golden era for international crime. Today’s international crime syndicates are global business corporations. They are applying the principles of what global business corporations should do, as taught at the Harvard School of Business: think international, form joint ventures and forge strategic alliances. The European Union, Europe, will become one huge Disneyland for organised crime. It is, therefore, crucial that a European judicial network is set up promptly. Not only for criminal affairs, but just as much for civil and trade affairs. It is both urgent and necessary for Europe, especially in terms of judicial matters, to organise itself professionally. We should, in this respect, perhaps follow the lead given by organised crime. Our Group supports both reports submitted by Mrs Keßler.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, Council representatives, at this stage of the debate I do not imagine a single Member of this House is unaware that the inclusion of Annex XV is most unfortunate. It is unfortunate in a legal sense because it calls into question specific rights of the European Parliament. It is unfortunate in a political sense because it poses a serious threat to the reputation of this House, of the Council itself and of the Commission as guardian of the Treaties. Indeed, it puts the whole enlargement process at risk. This unfortunate situation impacts us all. I should point out that it is particularly painful to those of us who have long argued in favour of the usefulness and validity of an interinstitutional agreement providing credibility and stability for the Union’s financial framework. In our innocence we believed the interinstitutional agreement was binding on all parties. Much to our dismay, however, we now find it only seems to be binding on certain Council officials when it suits them. My group is of the opinion that such delicate implementation calls for a stable and permanent financial framework, recognised by all. It was not necessary to include the Annex in the Treaty. Confidence in the interinstitutional agreement would have sufficed, but you lacked that confidence, gentlemen of the Council. A fresh negotiating proposal is on the table. This proposal finally provides for Annex XV to be included in the Treaty of Accession, albeit only because you are unable to turn the clock back and retrieve this unfortunate situation, gentlemen. You are nevertheless in a position to prevent further damage and accept the proposal our representatives will take to the tripartite dialogue tomorrow. If you fail to do so and bring rigidity and intransigence to bear on what is currently only an unfortunate situation, the scene will be set for something worse. Then the interinstitutional agreement some of us believe in almost blindly could become the collateral victim and suffer the most damage. I could give a louder warning but it would be hard to give a clearer one.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, Commissioner, the European Union is concluding its process of enlargement and I believe it is no coincidence that today’s debate has been held in parallel with the follow-up debate of the Intergovernmental Conference which should lead to a European Constitution, because I believe that the two should be inseparable. In the one minute available to me I will refer to the report presented by Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne on Romania. I believe it is a very well executed and exhaustive report on the problems existing in that country. It highlights the need for that country to make progress in compliance with the law and to combat corruption, as well as the need to strengthen the rule of law and respect for minorities. I am referring in particular to the Hungarian minority of more than one million inhabitants in Romania and also, naturally, to the Roma minority. With regard to the problem of abandoned children and adoptions, I believe the Commissioner’s response has been clear: the well-being of children must govern this process. I believe that the report can be a positive stimulus so that Romania will continue along the path it has taken.

Political group: ELDR
Madam President, with apologies to my friend, Enrique Barón Crespo, I should like to speak against this proposal. I am surprised it has even been made, because we came to an agreement following an exchange in the Conference of Presidents. I think that your proposal, Madam President, to keep the debate and the vote separate, with the debate on Friday and the vote at a later date, is a reasonable one. The reason is as follows: this issue concerns no less than 1 800 000 employees within the European Union. We already have a directive. It is not an old one, it was issued in 1997. Deciding upon future policy lines, with a view to a new directive, rather hastily, without having had time to consult the trade unions or have discussions with all the social partners, I feel, runs counter to the spirit we wish to inject into the debate on matters which directly involve the social operators. I propose, therefore, that we should keep the arrangements as per the agenda, with the debate on Friday and the vote at a later date.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, I shall keep to the topic. Landmines kill, every day and in many countries. Landmines are a lethal threat daily in many dozens of countries. In Kampuchea alone, over 35 000 people have been injured by landmines and those are the survivors. Every day, mines are removed and every day new ones are laid. The anti-landmine treaty of 1997 has been ratified by 19 countries and signed by 141. Countries that have not yet signed include Russia, Yugoslavia, but also Finland, which uses mines to defend its border with Russia. That is, of course, cheaper and helps bring down the defence budget. We can understand that. If Finland can use that argument, however, why not other countries too? I should therefore like to call on the Member States to force present and future members, as well as countries that receive financial aid from the European Union, to sign the treaty.

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I too am dissatisfied with your answer, as I have heard accounts from relatives of Cuban citizens unjustly held in US prisons, who have been denied any visiting rights. In one case, a mother was denied any access whatsoever to her son, and in another, the wife of one of these detainees also told me that she had been prevented from visiting her husband in US prisons. This is, obviously, a flagrant violation of human rights. Consequently, I ask you once again what measures the Council must take to intervene in order to uphold the rights of this mother and this wife, so that they may be able to visit their relatives held totally unjustly in US prisons.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, in our view, the Roadmap represents, at all events, a chance of peace which must be pursued over and above any feelings of like or dislike. It calls, first and foremost, for an end to the conflict, to terrorism, to suicide attacks, to targeted assassinations; it calls for Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories so that two peoples can coexist in peace within secure borders, with the guarantee of democratic institutions. To this end, we believe that the role of the international community is essential to the Roadmap, but we also believe that the European Union must forge itself a stronger, more incisive role in Middle East politics, not in order to set itself up against the United States but precisely so as to stop continually burying its head in the sand and to establish a foreign policy. Basically, that is the challenge facing the Convention, although it is not yet clear how best to tackle it: the challenge of building a political Europe which is able to address at global, at world-wide level the major issues of today – democracy, peace, freedom and development for all peoples, irrespective of race, colour or creed.

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to point out, on behalf of all my colleagues in the French Socialist delegation and on my own behalf, our position on the report on the adoption of a Statute for Members. The Statute needs to be adopted as a matter of urgency due to the imminent completion of the current enlargement process. We are in favour of the principles underlying this step, even though we disagree with certain provisions concerning the sum and taxation of remuneration for Members. The compensation system for Members did need to be rendered more comprehensible, but the text proposed does not seem to us to respond fully to this need. That is why the French Socialist delegation wished to amend the text by voting for Amendment No 8 to Article 7 of the draft Statute, which it tabled alongside other political groups. We feel that intelligent implementation of this principle means that remuneration would be adapted to different standards of living in the various Member States, even if certain inequalities would have to be corrected. We are sorry that this amendment was not adopted. In the current context, increasing remuneration for Members of the European Parliament would run the risk of causing an unfavourable reaction, at a time when the legitimacy of differences in remuneration between the economic and political elite and the rest of the population is in question.

Political group: PSE
I should like the Commissioner to tell us two things. Firstly, is he considering specific limits for the percentage of water which can be added? I understood that we were looking now at an upper limit of around 20%, instead of the 40% and 50% we sometimes see. Secondly, does he realise that the perpetrators of this scam said on British television that they have foolproof ways of disguising the fact that protein not of the origin advertised could be added to the product? Will he ask the EFSA or a similar body to investigate how these methods have continued in the way they have? They constitute consumer fraud and a public health scandal.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, we must clamp down on child pornography, for children are being abused in the name of child pornography, and we must therefore commit to a firm no in terms of criminal law and society. For this purpose, however, we require a well-thought out definition of child pornography which does not compromise the seriousness of the abuse of children and respects the European rights of both victims and suspects. The very broad definition in Mrs Karamanou’s report therefore gives my group some cause for concern. Indeed, censoring fantasy is taking things too far in our view. Virtual child pornography, pornographic texts and misleading images may be products of an unspeakable fantasy, but cannot be equated with the actual abuse of a child. The accounts of the Marquis de Sade do not strike me as particularly uplifting, but I do not want to impose a legal ban on them via this report either. Equally, I often dislike violence in books and films, such as Pulp Fiction, but only when fantasy touches reality should criminal law be introduced.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Madam President, I fear that I must say something that might upset some Members, but the ushers outside are afraid – and I use the word advisedly – to ask some Members to stop smoking, because of the kind of abuse they get when they try to do that. I need hardly say that I am totally against smoking as an ageing ex-nurse. I have personally gone round to both Members and visitors to ask them to put out their cigarettes. The ushers themselves have tried their very best to be diplomatic, but they are subjected, and I use the word advisedly, to abuse by some smokers when they ask them to stop smoking outside the doors. Members ought perhaps to be aware that this is not a very nice way of behaving towards the staff of Parliament.

Political group: PPE-DE
Madam President, I have to admit that before I entered the European Parliament I was involved with nickel-cadmium batteries for ten years. We even built a factory and I took out a number of patents, which have now expired. I therefore have no economic interests to register. I also have to admit that at the time we did not give much thought to what was to be done with the things later. I therefore believe we are right to be looking at how such batteries can be recycled. I would advise you not to ban things, however, but to introduce alternatives more quickly, and such alternatives exist in theory. Small fuel cells may easily come on the market this year or next and they contain no heavy metals. They also come from the same firms as make nickel-cadmium batteries, at any rate many have experience with them, and that would be my recommendation, instead of rushing straight to a ban.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, Commissioner, on behalf of my Group, the Group of the , I support all those members who have previously spoken to condemn human rights violations in Guatemala; to request that the peace and reconciliation agreements be respected; to request that the crimes and atrocities committed during the dictatorship should be brought before the Courts and to condemn the atrocities that are still being committed, especially by so-called ‘clandestine’ groups, who murder, torture, and violate human rights. However, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to make a very specific condemnation with regard to an issue that appears very peculiar to many Latin American countries, such as Guatemala, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador and other countries that are still living under a colonial regime. There is a white Creole minority that continues to dominate and marginalise millions of indigenous people who, in spite of being the majority, are completely ignored by the State. These States are not democratic and, in order to maintain the traditional privileges of ownership, they dominate and marginalise the indigenous minorities, and create dictatorial regimes that torture and murder if these minorities should dare to rebel. In this way, this minority controls the judiciary, ownership, the police and the army, and I believe that, in these Latin American countries, until there is genuine democracy – as has happened in South Africa – until the indigenous minorities have power and until they are truly able to create their own State for themselves, there will be no solution to this problem of human rights violations in these countries. On many occasions I compare countries that are very close to our own – the Spanish states in particular – with African countries: these are very often in a state of poverty and have dictatorial regimes, but one day they will become democratic regimes governed by the previously marginalised majority. In Latin America the problem is much worse and we have to be aware of this in order for Europe to be able to help in the construction of truly democratic regimes, governed by the majority.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, given the way that society is currently organised, where economic decisions are determined by profit, I do not trust the way in which industrial groups use scientific discoveries. But it is not the freedom to research that poses a problem, because research is what leads to human progress. We do not accept that the most reactionary pressure groups should be able to censure research on the grounds of religious interdicts or for whatever obscurantist reason it might be. We will therefore be voting against any amendment that seeks, on pseudo-ethical grounds, to ban research on stem cells from supernumerary embryos. Citing respect for life as a reason to oppose research on a mass of embryonic cells is all the more unacceptable because it prohibits therapeutic advances – and these have been made – that make it possible simply to save lives. In addition, these objections sometimes come from political movements that are apologists for the most odious wars, when it is not stem cells that are destroyed but actual human beings. I will finish by saying that in France, scientists have just demonstrated in protest at cuts in research funding. I support their protests. If there is not enough money for research, we should take some from the defence budget, which, conversely, is steadily rising.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, what we are discussing here today is European citizenship and the rights of European citizens themselves. As I see it, the rapporteur, Mr Perry, is strongly advocating a code of conduct which reflects the aims guiding those who drafted Article 41 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, namely the citizens’ right to good administration. Clearly, such a code calls for good administration by all those involved, institutions and officials alike. Furthermore, it should be implemented in the same way within all institutions. The code must be as widely known, as transparent and as accessible as possible to the citizens and should help to make the European institutions more credible and bring them closer to the citizens. Incidentally, I have to say that we still have a long way to go to achieve this. In addition, there must be no discrimination for reasons of sex, race, colour, ethnic origin, language or religion when implementing the code. In this connection, Mr President, I think it is worth mentioning that, even in this institution, far more zeal than usual is displayed in asking one of our German colleagues for her card. It so happens that the lady is of Kurdish descent, with a dark complexion and black eyes and therefore does not look like the average Member. If such behaviour goes on here, in this very House, imagine what can happen in the wider world. It is therefore essential for the code of conduct to be implemented with no discrimination whatsoever. The bodies already implementing the code of good conduct proposed by the Ombudsman deserve to be congratulated. I should also like to take this opportunity to congratulate the Ombudsman himself on his work. Through the citizens’ complaints the Ombudsman and the European Parliament’s Committee on Petitions on which I sit have become very aware of how much more still has to be done to make the European institutions more credible and bring them closer to the citizens. It is for us to work to promote such closeness and credibility.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, I wish to concentrate on that part of the report concerning public procurement where, unfortunately, the untoward situation has arisen in which, even though we issued a sound report at first reading, the quality has, since then, gone seriously downhill, with regard too to the common position we have obtained from the Council. I think it is a huge problem when the Council adopts a common position that is not in accordance with current law as laid down by the Court of Justice. The fact that the Court lays down something of which the Council takes no account is a major problem, and matters are not made any better by our also having a committee that chooses not to take account of the Court pronouncements we have. I believe that we in the EU have a clear obligation to promote our own objectives concerning sustainable development and to comply with our social responsibility. That means that we must also be able to incorporate social and environmental considerations into public procurement. I should like to say to some of those on the right wing who, in Parliament today, have accused us of being rabid environmental campaigners, that what is important in this case is that we in actual fact want to make public procurement transparent and to make it possible for social and environmental provisions to be incorporated into such procurement without, of course, disturbing the internal market. No one is talking about disturbing the internal market. We are all of us concerned that the internal market should operate properly, but we just want to make it possible for those who invite tenders to attach importance to things other than just price, that is to say to a broadly-based labour market, social conditions and the environment. It is in actual fact very simple, and fortunately we have a decision on this matter. The second thing I have to mention is that, during the first reading, we tabled a number of amendments to Article 27, in actual fact emphasising the aspect of labour market conditions. As Mr Hughes said, a curious change has, however, again crept into the amendment whereby it has been made conditional upon the aforementioned agreements being made law in the Member States. It is therefore essential to have that clause removed before we vote on the recommendation for second reading on Wednesday. There is no reason for interfering with the collective agreements we have in certain countries, and that is what in actual fact would be happening if the small clause in question were not removed. I recommend to the House here today that it consider adopting Amendment No 40 but that it avoid also accepting this clause. I hope we can in that way support the split vote proposed by Mr Hughes.

Political group: PSE