GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, in experiencing the adoption of the Charter of Fundamental Rights in the European Parliament we are seeing history in the making. The completion of this work is an important milestone in the history of the European Union, particularly for the people who live there. The work of the Convention under the leadership of the former German President, Roman Herzog, is to be welcomed. At this stage I should also like to thank Dr Ingo Friedrich who played a leading role in our group's contribution to the work of the Convention. But I should like once again to ask a very clear question here: do we want to create a charter of all immutable and inalienable human rights? Or do we want a wish list containing everything that would be nice? Are free education and free access to a job centre fundamental rights on the same footing as the right to life or human dignity? In Germany an extensive list of fundamental rights already existed in the Weimar constitution which, however, because it was so extensive, degenerated into a simple set of targets which could not be legally enforced. That must not happen here. We want to ensure that the fundamental rights of the European public are genuinely protected. With an eye to recent events, the issue of petrol prices also seems to me to be particularly noteworthy. The current situation, which is intolerable, particularly for many independent haulage firms and for agriculture, does in any case need to be improved. It is not enough for the finance ministers to swear in Versailles that they will not lower taxes, only for the countries where the protests are loudest to give in afterwards. The Intergovernmental Conference – to address a third subject – on the reform of the European institutions is also of decisive significance for us in Parliament. Majority voting can only be extended in the Council if at the same time the European Parliament's powers of codecision are widened. Any other procedure would mean a huge democratic deficit. Responsibilities must be clearly delimited. Provision for social, cultural and charitable causes must be included in Article 87 so that the future of these important institutions can also be permanently safeguarded.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, Indonesia is currently engaging in its largest military operation since the invasion of East Timor in 1975, against the GAM rebels in Aceh following the breakdown of a five-month-old cease-fire, and already there are reports of widespread suffering and human rights abuses. The conflict has its origin in the fact that although the Sultanate of Aceh was never technically incorporated into the Dutch East Indies it was one of the territories handed over by Holland to Indonesia in 1949, following the UN-sponsored talks between Indonesia and the former colonial power. The Acehnese, although fellow Muslims, almost immediately began fighting for independence, and the province was given special status. The unrest is exacerbated by the Indonesian Government's exploitation of the province's gas and petroleum resources as well as the policy of transmigration which has seen many Javanese come to live and work in the province's coastal and industrial belts. The earlier cease-fire, which was aimed in part, from the EU's point of view, at ensuring Indonesian support for the worldwide fight against terrorism, whilst protecting the human rights of the Acehnese, is clearly now defunct. President Megawati understandably wishes to prevent Indonesia falling apart. The army appears to have persuaded her, unwisely, that a military solution is possible. It is highly unlikely that the military option is the only one that will work in the long term. A political solution now needs to be found quickly.

Political group: PPE-DE
Madam President, Mrs Banotti has already raised the matter of the effect of the acts of terrorism on airlines. It is more than airlines: the European tourism industry is Europe's biggest industry, and the World Travel and Tourism Council estimates at the present time that two million jobs could be lost in Europe. This is a very serious matter. I hope the Commission and Council can address this and come forward with some proposals to try and alleviate the situation, because it could be quite drastic. I have just returned from the United States where hotel accommodation is currently about 20% of capacity and aircraft are operating at between 25 and 33% of capacity. There has been a huge reaction and I hope the Council and, in particular, the Commission can do something to help before matters get really serious in Europe.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, all my colleagues have stressed the expectations that surrounded the Nice Summit, which was intended to allow the European Union to continue operating effectively, democratically and transparently after the historic enlargement we are awaiting. Certainly, the Nice Summit has made it possible to achieve significant progress on all the issues that directly affect the lives of our citizens, whether it be the preservation of health, the protection of the environment, social policy or indeed the adoption of a European Company Statute. Another positive point is that the Charter of Fundamental Rights has been officially proclaimed, even if it is not intended to be binding at this stage. Finally, the decisions taken in the area of the common foreign and security policy represent undeniable progress. This summit would have been a triumph if the crucial revision of the Treaties had been crowned with as much success as the areas I have just mentioned. In fact, while we seem to have succeeded in avoiding total paralysis of the future enlarged European Union, it has not been possible to convert the ambitions of the French Presidency into a new draft of the Treaty. Be it the excessively limited number of areas transferred from unanimity to majority voting, or subject to codecision, be it the upward revision of the number of Members of the European Parliament in the Europe of tomorrow, or yet again, be it the uncertainty over the number of Commissioners after the enlargements, the Treaty does not come up to scratch, far from it. Beyond the technical aspects of that reform, what concerns us most of all is the growing difficulty the Member States of the European Union have in making joint decisions, in accordance with the common interests of their citizens. Let me conclude, as rapporteur for the outermost regions of the Union, by expressing deep regret at the rather disappointing conclusions of the Nice Summit, which do no more than acknowledge the Commission’s work programme. The outermost regions deserve better and Parliament will continue to work flat out – with Commissioner Barnier’s help, I am sure – to give them all the space they are entitled to within the Union.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, your uncontrollable, uncontrolled and faltering economy has bled Argentina dry; 50% of the population has fallen below the poverty line, there is mounting anger within the working population which, without work and largely deprived of benefits, is reduced to scavenging rubbish dumps. The only response that Argentina’s leaders have found is to shoot on unemployed Argentineans who were taking part in demonstrations, killing two youths and injuring hundreds of people. What is happening in Argentina is appalling, all the more so because this country, which was not even one of the world’s poorest, was plundered for years by large American – and European – corporations, which enjoyed a booming trade whilst running this country into the ground. Although the majority of the population is bankrupt, a rich minority, be it Argentinean or foreign, continues to grow richer. The only thing that the joint resolution finds to say, apart from some vague turns of phrase condemning the economic, political and social crisis as if it were a natural disaster, is to protest against the attack on the right to property and to call for action from the Argentine Government to enforce respect for the fundamental right to property of local savers and foreign investors. In our view, this amounts to saying that those who do not have property or investments therefore only have the right to die, and Parliament will not even utter a word of protest. We would have voted for a motion for a resolution by the Confederal Group of the , which at least condemns the police’s brutal repression. We utterly reject the joint resolution.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, this is quite a difficult debate, which we must approach in a spirit of democracy, whilst also showing sensitivity to all parties involved. We all agree that the principle of sustainability based on scientific criteria must, of course, be observed when exploiting the sea’s resources, but the principle of non-discrimination must also apply, although this must be duly combined and complemented with the principle of relative stability, which is also important. I wish to thank those colleagues who, together with Mrs Figueiredo, voted for my amendment on access to waters in the Azores region. In fact, as has already been stated, this is an extremely sensitive situation, with a very complex ecological balance, and enormous care must be taken in granting access to these waters, since fish are concentrated in a tiny part of these waters, in the furthest reaches of the sea. Secondly, I also wish to support the Commission’s intention, expressed in this proposal for a report, to continue the specific arrangements with regard to access to the waters lying between Portugal and Spain. This was, in fact, decided in 1995, by common agreement between the two countries, and has had the support of the Commission and the Council. We hope that these arrangements can continue, because they are the best way of pursuing responsible fishing and a climate of peace between the fishing communities of the two countries.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, I should like to apologise for coming in late; this debate has proceeded rather quickly but I have listened to what the Commissioner said elsewhere. What she said did not appear very clear or precise at all in terms of the situation as it stands. I find that disappointing. We gave you a brief in March 2000. We expect you to stick to the brief or to come back and tell us something different. We need to know what progress you have made with that brief. We need to know what you are doing about it. We need to know what progress has been made on noise emissions, gaseous emissions, and indeed on fuel economy. Successful negotiation requires preparation and hard work. We need to know that is being done and we need to hear from you that it is being done. We need you to go out there and tell the Americans very clearly that noise and gaseous emissions from aircraft are a serious problem in Europe, a more serious problem than in the USA because we are a smaller place and we have a different infrastructure. The projected growth of air traffic demands is clearly an issue that requires action now. We need you to stick to your brief. We will be watching very closely. But essentially we need our Commissioner to stand up for Europe, to stand up for Europe and its industry, to stand up for Europe and its environment and to stand up for Europe and its people. We expect you do it. Let us hope that you can say something further at the end of the debate that will reassure me.

Political group: PSE
The fact that, after eight years of negotiations, the European authorities cannot even obtain reliable information on the production of waste, particularly industrial waste, and its treatment, is indicative of their powerlessness. This is one way in which they have shown their incapacity to follow a policy in this field that is capable of limiting environmental pollution and preventing environmental disasters now or in the future. The explanatory statement clearly records that “no agreement was reached” between Member States, that there was 'considerable opposition in the Council' and that there was rejection by 'business'. The treatment of certain types of waste, particularly from the nuclear, chemical and petroleum industries, requires cooperation on an international level, yet the powerlessness of the European authorities mirrors the intentional powerlessness of Member States. Neither wants to clash with the private interests of large industrial groups or to impose upon them draconian measures that could reduce their profits, in order to preserve society’s environmental interests. We have abstained because the proposals in this report are too vague. - Koukiadis report (A5-0250/2001)

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, I do not know if it is symbolic in any way that the report on these issues was put forward by one of our colleagues, who happens to be a General. This distinguished colleague endeavoured to improve the Commission’s proposals. However, we should refer both these texts back, because we are not a schizophrenic parliament which says one thing for Chechnya and another for Turkey. We cannot afford to be a parliament which is politically dead. The Helsinki Summit takes place in a few days’ time. And what will our message be? Everything’s fine? We have adopted the regulations? Never mind about Öçalan? Never mind, look at it from a tourist’s perspective! In Greece, Turkey and the Eastern Mediterranean, we slaughter a cock and daub its blood over the foundations of a new house. Never mind if Öçalan is sacrificed or is in danger of being sacrificed over the foundations of Turkey’s accession to the European Union? Is that what we are going to say to the Summit? And for what? For two regulations, one of which is illegal and pure sleight of hand. It has made Turkey, an applicant country, out to be a developing country so as to get round the unanimity rule in the Council of Ministers of the European Union. In my view, the European Parliament should stand its ground and should allow not only Turkey but also the Turkish people into the European Union and, in the process, it should intervene to give the Turkish people the rights they have so far been denied.

Political group: GUE-NGL
The recession in the 2001 economic cycle was not only made worse by the fall in world demand and by the consequences for every sector of the attacks on the USA, but also by a policy of applying the Stability Pact strictly and the obsession with nominal convergence. In practice, we have ignored the issues that affect European citizens’ living standards and quality of life, such as investment in production, particularly public investment, the maintenance of wage increases that are in line with and boost productivity, the profound inequalities in income distribution, high unemployment and poverty. These objectives have suffered as a result of the inflexibility of the monetary policy underpinning the euro and which will, in the long term, lead to greater difficulties or an unwanted increase in flexibility in other areas, specifically in employment contracts and labour in general. It should therefore come as no surprise that a report which is supposed to address the ways in which we can support the sectors directly affected by the attacks of 11 September ultimately turns out to be a reaffirmation of the prevailing dogma. It states that, in Barcelona, we need to step up the liberalisations and reforms of the labour market and blindly comply with the objectives outlined in the Stability Pact without taking account of the problems of the stage in the cycle that we have now reached. The report does, however, raise two positive issues: it states that companies must not use 11 September as an excuse to make employees redundant and insists that the European Central Bank should reduce its key interest rate. Nevertheless, in view of its initial ideas, we can only vote against this report. Report Blak (A5-0024/2002)

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, I congratulate Mr Pirker on his report. There are some interesting aspects in it that I can support, but the issue of the creation of border guards with police powers is a disturbing development. One of the issues that has not really been taken into account is the control and accountability of these police guards. This is the wrong direction to take. In general there is too much emphasis on turning this matter into a criminal issue. I listened to the speaker from the UEN Group, who lumped illegal immigrants in with drugs traffickers, but there is a big difference between the two. Illegal immigrants may be illegal, but they are still just ordinary people and not criminals. All they are doing is desperately trying to find somewhere to live. The whole emphasis on keeping people out has to be addressed. We should in fact be addressing the issue of why people want to enter the European Union, instead of building our barricades higher. More and more people are being driven into the hands of people traffickers and, as my colleague has said, the whole issue of work practices and exploitation needs to be tackled. We have to examine, with regard to illegal immigration, the root cause of why people have to leave their own country, and this is a human rights issue rather than a criminal issue.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Ever since the Edinburgh summit in 1992, the architects of the EU have been cultivating the view that European citizenship is not a substitute for national citizenship, but, on the contrary, that it supplements and broadens national citizenship by creating ‘EU rights’. That is a distortion of the truth. In the same breath as citizens’ rights are defined as ‘European rights’, taking precedence over rights based on national legislation, in precisely the same breath, national citizenship is undermined. European citizenship is purely and simply integration through the back door. This political pickpocketing is at once antidemocratic and repressive. What is being proposed is the absorption of vital parts of countries’ legal systems, including criminal law and the police, into European citizenship. The belief seems to be that these genuine values – democracy and the rule of law – can be acquired for the DKK 2 000 million which the Commission has just allocated to strengthen the legitimacy of the European institutions. 'There is something rotten' – not in Denmark, but in the European Union. It is obvious that third-country nationals should have the same rights as Member States’ nationals, but we do not need this measure to make the fact clear.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, this is a good practical proposal from the Commission for doing something about global warming and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, because, although the total quantity of greenhouse gases being produced from air conditioning and refrigeration equipment is not vast, the amount is growing very substantially year by year – it is expected to increase 15 times between 1995 and 2010. The committee has rejected some of the key proposals from the Commission on mobile air conditioning. I hope it has made the position for the car industry clearer. However, I am not sure that the way in which we have thrown out some of the opportunities for flexibility is really the most appropriate course of action, so we shall wait to see what the Council of Ministers has to say about that and, no doubt, return to this debate. Most of all, I regret that the Socialist Group and the have done this deal on pushing the date for the introduction of vehicles using carbon dioxide back to 2011 from the original proposal of the committee for 2009. That is not ambitious enough, certainly not for a first reading, when we have so many negotiations yet to come. I know it takes manufacturers many years to design a vehicle to put on the market. A few years ago no one used air conditioning – I have never bought a car with air conditioning. What do we say to future generations? We did not take action to curb greenhouse gas emissions and global warming as fast as we could, because we all wanted to drive around in cooler cars in the summer. However convincing the industry's arguments may be now, they will look pretty weak in years to come.

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, in the fight against international crime and terrorism, there is already cooperation between the Member States of the European Union and the United States as regards information and this has produced significant results. It must be developed at judicial level in order to improve efficiency, but also in order to comply with our fundamental principles and the protection of freedoms. Indeed, the more effort we put into stepping up international cooperation in the fight against terrorism and other forms of crime, the more care we will have to take not to lose the democratic guarantees and legal principles on which our action is based along the way. Like Mr Watson, I would also mention Parliament’s resolution of 13 December 2001, and, in particular, the principles it set out concerning the negotiations on judicial cooperation with the United States. Firstly, complete respect for the European Convention on Human Rights and minimum procedural guarantees of a fair trial, as confirmed by the European Court of Human Rights. Article 6 of the Treaty establishing the European Union must be mentioned explicitly in the agreement and there should also be a reference to the Charter of Fundamental Rights, which was proclaimed by the Council, by the Member States, and will, I hope, be given constitutional value. Secondly, extradition to the United States must be refused for people who may be tried before military tribunals. Thirdly, extradition must not be allowed if the defendant is liable to be sentenced to the death penalty. Mr Alavanos is right: it is not simply a matter of stating that it ‘may be denied’; it must not be possible if there is a risk of execution. Fourthly, we must ensure that the provisions on data protection are proportionate and effective and only last for a limited period of time. As regards the connection with the European arrest warrant and the International Criminal Court, I believe that, where there is a choice, the Member States must be free to choose between requests for extradition by the United States and requests to hand people over under the European arrest warrant or from the International Criminal Court, but I would like you to inform us of the positions in the Council. Is it true that the United States rejects all references to the ICC and a number of Member States support this position? The United States has asked for a reextradition clause to be included in the agreement that would prevent an EU Member State sending a US citizen to the International Criminal Court or another international tribunal without its express agreement. Is this request also supported by Member States? Lastly, does the Council acknowledge that such a reextradition clause would be contrary to its commitments regarding precisely the International Criminal Court and the Rome Statute?

Political group: PSE