GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Mr President, I can understand the frustration of Mr Varela and our other Spanish colleagues about this amendment, but what this amendment seeks to do, and I do not wish to reopen the debate, is to protect a key conservation zone, one of the most significant conservation zones in European waters. (Applause) If we are to be taken seriously as a House, if our Common Fisheries Policy is to be taken seriously, then we must insist that this policy is about preserving fish stocks, allowing fish stocks to recover. That is what support for Amendment 20 would mean. Trying to use the Rules of Procedure to stop this House having its democratic say on this amendment would be a serious error. I would suggest to you, Mr President, if you are inclined to rule that this amendment is inadmissible, that the whole report be referred back to committee. But I hope you do not rule that it is inadmissible and that we can go ahead with the vote. (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE
Few issues so highlight the differences of cultural approach between Member States. I feel this report reflects a good consensus and I congratulate Mrs Giannakou-Koutsikou on the work that she has done in putting it together. I belong to a growing minority in the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party and also in this House which believes a radical change to our approach may be needed. Why? Quite apart from the ethical flaw in the prohibitionist argument – the state has no right to prevent a responsible adult from taking drugs – the fact is that prohibition is not working. Our approach, which is based on controlling the supply of drugs, is using up massive resources. The police in Bristol in my constituency tell me that 85% of all crime is drug-related. This is destroying our inner cities, where drug dealers find a large market and sometimes even become role models for disenchanted young people. It is filling our prisons with people who need care rather than incarceration, and it discriminates disproportionately against ethnic minorities, some of which have cultures in which drug abuse is less frowned upon than in others. But, more importantly, it is helping to fund other forms of criminal activity and strengthening international organised crime. We need at least to consider switching resources away from attacking the supply of drugs and towards attacking demand. (Applause)

Political group: ELDR
The ever-worsening fish shortages in European seas make concluding agreements with former European colonies in Africa an attractive proposition. The EU pays those poor countries in order to give modern European fishing vessels the opportunity of removing large quantities of fish from the adjacent seas. Although this is a welcome source of income for those countries in the short term, it is not a solution in the longer term, and hinders the development of a local modern fishing industry. By the time those countries are capable of starting such a form of fisheries, those seas too will be fished empty by fishermen from far away. Quite apart from my general criticism of such neo-colonial fishing agreements, I have in this case another objection. The Cote d’Ivoire that used to be relatively rich thanks to cacao exports has meanwhile been rent asunder by a civil war. The animosities between ethnic groups give us little reason to expect that a peace agreement will be adhered to. Reunification and a government that can wield power effectively are unlikely prospects. As in other war situations, this makes it possible to plunder fish stocks in the coastal waters to a greater extent than had been agreed. I therefore support the amendment to suspend the agreement until such time as the civil war is over. A rejection of this amendment is for me cause to vote against.

Political group: GUE-NGL
I voted against this report. Not because I would object to scientific cooperation, but because of the explanatory statement. Mr Putin owes his election victory to the bloody war of extermination against the Chechen people. He is currently continuing this genocide and moreover he is also trying to completely eliminate the freedom of the media and the rule of law in Russia, which, as it is, barely exist.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, there are too many Members in the Chamber. I am not used to giving my explanation of vote with so many members present. If you want us to wait until everyone leaves, I am happy to wait. Otherwise, I shall begin to give my explanation of vote.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are nearing the end of a long journey, an odyssey that has, from time to time, seen us wandering far afield and sometimes finding ourselves in choppy waters. The attempt has been made to persuade us that this statute was about nothing more than reforming the reimbursement of travel costs, that it was about money and nothing else. A statute dealing only with money, with its reimbursement, and with costs, is not, though, the sort of statute that the European Parliament needs at the present time. We were told that primary legislation would run aground on the cliffs of the Council, and that our ideas on tax law would drag us down to the depths of the ocean. Now, if I may pick out these as examples, I think that we have good arguments on our side. The two problems that remain to be resolved are taxes and primary law, and – as far as taxes are concerned – the Council thinks it can leave it to each individual Member State to decide whether or not it wants to levy an additional national tax. It so happens that, in 2000, the three legal services – those of Parliament, the Council, and the Commission – met to discuss this issue. The minutes of their deliberations record their conclusion that they could find no justification for a derogation for a Member State, and then they continue in the following terms: (FR) ‘If full – or possibly only partial – national taxation of the Parliamentary allowance is objectively justifiable, the criteria of application should be set at Community level, and the decision on whether or not to tax Members should not be left to the discretion of each Member State’.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, the principles included in the Caudron report are exactly identical to those in the amendments tabled by Messrs Liese, Nisticò, Fiori and Trakatellis, except that in those amendments, one more element has been added, namely the fact that we must also take account of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. That is the only point added, and I therefore hope that our friends, as well as others, will vote in favour of this amendment.

Political group: PPE-DE
The scant importance accorded to Parliament’s reports on monetary policy is understandable. Instead of conducting a genuinely critical analysis of the implementation of monetary policy, the same old arguments are repeated, regardless of the economic climate. It is no surprise, then, that this report should begin with the words ‘[c]ongratulates once again the ECB for a successful introduction [of the euro]’, and concludes cheerfully ‘that the ECB reacted correctly to economic and financial developments’. All this is always packaged in the dogmas of service, support for the Stability Pact and flexibility of the labour market. We know that a rigid monetary policy means that adjustments made to overcome economic crises are reflected in salaries and employment, affecting internal demand and increasing inequality, poverty, and social exclusion. One cannot help but notice that the present climate of recession in the EU, and the disparities between inflation rates, demonstrate that a single monetary policy cannot respond effectively to the needs of Member States at different stages of economic development. I therefore insist once more on the need for an in-depth review of the guidelines for monetary and budgetary policy. Their inflexibility has not only contributed to a failure to seize on the potential for economic growth in the last few years, but is also primarily responsible for the current recession and concomitant increase in unemployment. That is why we voted against the report.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to start by thanking the rapporteur for the presentation of his report, and also for his commitment to climate protection in recent years. I would also like to thank the Commission, in particular Commissioner Wallström, who has done everything to make it possible for us to now discuss in definite terms the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol, which, we can now, thank God, get to grips with. Tomorrow we can say only ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ to the Kyoto Protocol, but it has taken a great deal of work to give us the chance to say ‘Yes’ to a comprehensive agreement. I thank all those who have played a part in this. The Kyoto Protocol has come in for heavy criticism and will continue to do so. Most recently, as the rapporteur has mentioned, it is burden sharing on which criticism has again been focused. I will say here quite openly that burden sharing merits criticism, and that those who say that the burdens are shared unfairly, are right. No one, though, is reducing too much; all the Member States are reducing too little. The experts tell us quite unambiguously that, if we want to put a stop to climate change, we must reduce greenhouse gases by 50% worldwide. The magnitude of the task and the pettiness of the discussions between the Member States about this first step – which is, after all, a very modest one – is shown if we work on the basis that the industrialised countries need to reduce by over 50% in order for the developing countries to have any kind of chance of achieving some sort of prosperity for themselves. India produces a tonne of CO2 per head of the population, as against the Member States of the European Union with about 10 tonnes on average. Against such a backdrop it is bad enough that some EU Member States are permitted to increase their emissions, and that the Member States that produce a very great deal of pollution, such as the one from which I come, complain about now having to reduce their emissions by a relatively large amount. The Kyoto Protocol is only an initial step and must be followed by many others. We should not, therefore, be small-mindedly discussing the number of places after the decimal point, but energetically striving for a sustainable economy, being careful with resources and saving energy.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, in these circumstances, an own-initiative report and all this confusion, I propose that it be returned to the competent committee and that they do the work properly.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, I have some sympathy with Mr Sacrédeus. I am opposed to the death penalty. It needs to be abolished throughout the world, save possibly in time of war. I myself in this House appealed to President Fontaine last year to write to the US federal authorities to protest against the death penalty for the right-wing terrorist Timothy McVeigh. Yet I confess I voted against placing this issue on the agenda. I am not convinced of its urgency in the light of the fact that in South Korea the government of Kim Dae-jung has not allowed any death sentences to be carried out since he took office in February 1998. In Taiwan, as the resolution itself states, there has been a recent reform in the penal code abolishing the mandatory death penalty for various violent crimes, while the Minister of Justice has stated that this is the first step towards abolishing capital punishment within the next three years. In Japan there has been a Diet Members' League for the Abolition of the Death Penalty since 1993. In one sense I am almost amused that the resolution welcomes its creation nine years on. It almost warrants an entry in the Guinness Book of Records as one of the most belated welcomes in history, and I confidently expect in the future to hear in one of our resolutions that Mafeking has been relieved. The League for the Abolition of the Death Penalty has 113 members from all parties in both Houses in Japan, representing almost one sixth of MPs. Last year, only two death sentences were carried out and the government has announced that it will promote a new law that will create the possibility for judges to substitute life without parole for the death penalty for capital crimes. Nevertheless, now that the matter is on the agenda, we will vote in favour of the resolution, of course, but maybe in future we can focus on those countries around the world where the carrying out of death sentences is virtually or actually a daily event.

Political group: PSE
For as long as there have been huge differences in income in the world, people have migrated from poor to rich countries. In the past that migration was actually encouraged by governments, since businesses suffered from a shortage of labour, and it looks as if this is about to be repeated. The fundamental problem, the unequal distribution of wealth among humankind, is not solved in this way. There are also people who are not asked to come, but who are forced to leave their country of origin. Once they have left they can no longer return in safety, since the prevailing regime threatens them with imprisonment or even the death penalty. Unfortunately it is still common for such people to be turned away or sent back at the border. The tough outer borders of ‘Fortress Europe’ are driving more and more people into the hands of unscrupulous human smugglers, who are greedy for fat profits and abandon people to their lot before the port or border river is reached. It is right that this mafia should be tackled. On the other hand it is madness to start punishing the solidarity of pressure groups and churches with political refugees and workers employed for a long period of time in a Member State of the EU without the correct papers. The Ceyhun report moves in the right direction, but is still inadequate.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, as you know, the Fontaneda factory and trademark are emblematic in Spain and are historically and geographically linked to the Aguilar de Campoo area. They are the driving force behind social and economic development in this whole area, which is located in a European Objective 1 region with serious depopulation problems, where, in 2001, 1 500 people have already lost their jobs. The announcement of the closure – and it seems that today the company has put this right – was purely in business interests and would naturally mean that jobs would have to be relocated, which shows genuine contempt for workers’ rights, and furthermore the fictitious transfer of the trademark in order to keep producing these biscuits in a location other than the one it has been historically linked to. This situation is too serious for the President-in-Office of the Council to say that nothing can be done. It would have been more reasonable had he been concerned about the social consequences of these business decisions and the need for the European Union to confront the challenge of establishing Community principles that respect the social rights of workers, and that offer effective responses to the social, economic and territorial consequences of these decisions. Does he really not think that such a declaration from the person representing the Presidency would have been more worthy and more in line with the social Europe we want to construct?

Political group: PSE
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, everyone acknowledges that sport is a means of personal development and a special opportunity to meet other people. But does everyone see and recognise the different purposes of participation in sport? For some, it may be a question of keeping fit. For others, it may be part of their personal education process, while for others it is the presentation of a spectacle or a quest for victory at all costs. We all know that sport is a tremendous instrument of national cohesion and of social integration. However, we are also aware that sport can sometimes be accompanied by horrific acts of violence, abominable racist outbursts and unacceptable strident nationalism. And for all of these reasons, we cannot accept the idea that sport should be considered in its economic dimension alone. Voluntary organisations and individual volunteers are every bit a part of the sporting world, and it is surely thanks to them that sport is alive in our countries and that mass sport will be able to survive in future. Not every human act can be priced with a pocket calculator. The effect of that approach on human relations is too dangerous for us to remain silent. Where there is no money to be won and no obligation to show a profit, there may quite simply be the desire to share these special opportunities, and sport undoubtedly has its place – indeed its foremost place – in such encounters. This quest for human bonds in an increasingly commercial society contains the seeds of resistance to the commercialisation of the world and of human relations. We cannot accept this excessive striving for profits to the detriment of human development. The protection of young sportspeople is a priority of the French Presidency. It is our priority, and we must demand the prohibition of commercial transactions relating to these young people. We must also, of course, provide for the introduction of sport into the Treaty – if not in the short term, then at least in the medium term. It is certainly a challenge, but we must accept it for the sake of coming generations.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, it was Mrs Malmström and myself who wrote the reports on human rights last year. We are very pleased that the approach adopted then has been carried forward into the reports we are discussing today. We Liberals support Mr Cornillet’s desire for the new charter of human rights to be a model and criterion of relevance for this Parliament’s work on human rights. Like human rights watchdogs, we can make use of the charter even before it acquires formal status, and we can at the same time acquire a much needed means of opposing that watering down of the concept of human rights that threatens to turn the latter into everything and nothing. There has, of course, been a tendency in this Parliament to make every conceivable subject from the party programmes into human rights issues. It happens with the best of intentions, but it damages human rights because it makes citizens who disagree about one point or another say, ‘f those are human rights, then we are opposed to them.’ The whole Austria business did a lot of damage, because it was all about opinions and suppositions. If, instead, it had been about specific breaches of the charter of human rights, there would have been a lot of sympathy for the action. That is why we here in Parliament must make the charter central. We must guard it like watchdogs. We must use it in such a way as to resist its being watered down by do-gooders. That is why we Liberals are voting against almost all the amendments: not because we disagree with the intentions behind the amendments, but because we attach too much importance to human rights to be a party to using them to adorn every conceivable point of view that does not fall within the charter’s human rights criterion. As I say, however, we warmly support the two reports as they stand, except with regard to just a few points, and we are grateful for the fact that we have in this way acquired a better organised treatment of human rights for the future.

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, the European Parliament today has voted on legislation that will slow down the rate of technological advance, narrow consumer choice, increase the price of software and destroy the free and open-source software industry in Europe. Of course I have voted against it. We do not want to see a situation where a limitless patent system can be abused by large operatives to stifle technical competition or, even worse, prevent the publication of information. US experience tells us that software patents do not encourage innovation and R[amp]D but, in fact, weaken the market and suffocate small and medium-sized enterprises, as well as those starting out in the market. Software is not an invention and is already protected under copyright law, just like books, films and music. Changing this to patenting is a recipe for handing the software industry over to lawyers instead of the creative people who have led the boom in technology. I welcome the fact that the directive as proposed was improved, but it is still not good enough and I hope that it will not destroy the software industry in Europe as we know it.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, as I was coming to Parliament this morning I remembered the night I sat by my father's bedside looking at his wasted body as the lung cancer finally claimed him. I am sure I am not the only person in this Parliament to have lost friends or family through smoking. The fact is that if the laws on drugs which apply in most countries across the European Union were applied consistently, then tobacco manufacturers would all be locked up behind bars and condemned as murderers for deliberately making their products addictive. Yet when it comes to the greatest killer drug of all, we apply different rules. There is no consistency and we say that people should be allowed to choose for themselves. As a Liberal, I agree with that position: people should be allowed to choose for themselves. However, everything possible must be done to ensure that those decisions are made with full knowledge of the consequences. The manufacturers say that everyone knows the risks already; that there is no need to increase the size of the health warnings, and that they certainly should not adopt the sort of proposal I am putting forward, to supplement the health warnings with some hard-hitting pictures to drive home the consequences. Frankly, the manufacturers have an addiction of their own: an addiction to trying to mislead us. If the rules on advertising were changed, manufacturers would grasp the opportunity to promote their products in every possible way, because they believe that advertising works. And we should accept that fact: advertising does work. We should seek to turn the tables on them. We should seek to ensure that the cigarette packs themselves are turned into instruments to promote health, not death. We should follow the Canadian example and ensure that advertising is used effectively. And the bigger the better.

Political group: ELDR