GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Mr President, I would like to point out that, just when we are going to debate and vote on the ‘Women and fundamentalism’ report by Mrs Izquierdo Rojo – and if we do nothing to prevent it – a thirty-year-old Nigerian woman, accused of adultery, will be put to death by stoning. On the 18th of this month – and I repeat, if we do nothing to prevent it – we will once again see barbaric television pictures of a person buried up to their waist and then stoned to death. This is an unjust, discriminatory and savage way of applying the Sharia, the Islamic law. I would therefore ask you to address the appropriate representations, pressure and initiatives to the Nigerian government and the President of Nigeria in order to prevent this murder and safeguard the fundamental rights of Nigerian women.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, the ecological disaster in the Danube reminds us of how closely linked all the countries of Europe are and how important water is to us all. Discharges from chemical factories in my own constituency in the north-west of England will end up on the beaches of mainland Europe. This brings home the connections which bind us together. This framework directive is intended to paint the broad brushstrokes of the policy for the next decades and there has been much panic over the details. It is important for us to remember that this is a framework. These brushstrokes are indeed very broad. It is easy for individual countries, for individual sectors of industry, to escape the effects which have been painted to us in recent days. There are many opportunities to hide. The reality is that the details of this legislation will be set out in daughter directives in months and years to come. That is the time to debate some of these problems of detail. The broad principles are surely ones we should be able to accept – the broad principles that we wish to reduce hazardous waste leaking into the groundwater, the broad principles that we should be aiming to ensure that chemicals, which we all need in society in all circumstances, should not be finding their way into our water system. There is a chemical factory in the north-west which wrote to me to say that we must vote against this legislation. I would have to ask them what chemicals they are putting into the water supply at the moment and why they are not broadcasting to all the residents in that area exactly what they are doing. This is something that they prefer to avoid doing. The principle also concerns water charging. The basic understanding which many of us now share is that we need to introduce environmental taxation to encourage conservation, to use the carrot-and-stick approach to make best use of our assets so that we do not add to the pollution or loss of a valuable resource like water. I want to refer to the political position here. The common position has weakened the stand taken by Parliament at first reading. Some of the NGOs would say that the directive as now framed is worse than useless. It is a retrograde step. This is an opportunity for us to improve the situation. We need to get ourselves into a position of conciliation. We have seen vote after vote lost. Measure after measure has come out of the Environment Committee. We have failed to achieve a qualified majority. Our attempt to improve the environment of Europe has failed. We need to get into that conciliation position. We need, at the end of the day, to ensure that we end up with a sensible, balanced policy of real improvements at a reasonable cost.

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, as has been pointed out, this report is, of course, a consequence of the quite arduous work done on the report on Article 255 of the EC Treaty, which concerns public access to documents and on which we voted on 3 May. Thanks to the extremely strong alliance for transparency which existed, and still exists, in Parliament and in which Mrs Maij-Weggen and Mr Cashman have played a significant role, we finally succeeded in getting the Council and the Commission to endorse a proposal reflecting this House’s desire for as much transparency as possible. The legislation we adopted is deficient and unclear in certain respects but constitutes a first and very important step forwards in the fight for greater transparency in the EU’s work on behalf of its citizens. We also decided to review the regulations by January 2004 at the latest. In the same way as we did then, we must now take the lead in the work aimed at taking a further step forward. Transparency and public control are the bases for a democratic form of government and a prerequisite for people’s being able to follow, and participate in, public decision-making. The opportunity to access EU documents creates greater confidence and legitimacy, two things in short supply in the EU at the present time, unfortunately. When we adjust our regulations, let us not therefore make them too complicated. Let us interpret Article 255 as generously as possible and the concept of a ‘document’ as broadly as possible. There are exemptions in the legislation, in Article 4, but let us not leave the way open for new interpretations of secrecy or of classification of documents as top secret, and let us not construct unnecessary bureaucracies, either. It is important for people to be able to obtain documents to which they are entitled as soon as possible, as well as for documents to be available on the Internet. The Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party tabled amendments along these lines in the committee, but they were not adopted. I hope that they will nonetheless be adopted in practice. My group supports this report because, for us, transparency and public control are efficient and democratic, not bureaucratic and unnecessary. Through progressive and extensive regulations in Parliament governing transparency, we can show that it is we who are there for the people, and not the other way around.

Political group: ELDR
Weapons such as landmines and cluster bombs are a veritable nightmare. Not only do they not discriminate between the military and innocent civilians, but after years of war they are still claiming victims among the population. These weapons must be taken out of the arsenals for good. Unlike cluster bombs, there is an international ban on landmines. It is in part thanks to the European Union that the use and production of landmines is decreasing, trade in landmines has been stopped and that there are fewer victims. However, as long as non-state actors are excluded from the banning process, there cannot be a world free of landmines. That is why it is important that the European Union also targets these groups with its policy and puts the topic on the agenda for the next meeting on the Ottawa Convention. Based on its experiences with landmines, it is good that the European Commission is now also developing strategies and programmes for unexploded ammunition from wars. These new activities must not, however, be carried out at the expense of the campaign against landmines; extra money must be made available for this. Many people also think that weapons containing depleted uranium also pose a risk to public health. The Commissioner referred to research that says that actually there is no reason for this concern but I share the doubts of a number of my colleagues as to whether this is enough to justify coming to the conclusion that we can simply carry on using these weapons. I am not reassured on that point yet. No matter, it is high time that we opened our eyes to the cluster bombs and that we finally woke up from our nightmare.

Political group: ELDR
Madam President, I welcome this report and want to pay tribute to the rapporteur, Mr Santini, because he has worked very hard on it. It has been a lengthy process and he has made a tremendous amount of progress. That we have arrived at this point does great credit to him and everybody else who has worked on this dossier. He said it is a question of simplifying formalities. That in itself is something of a simplification, because it is a lot more than that and, as the Commissioner himself just said, it brings together a very complex network of existing measures. It is very important that what we are doing here is seen and publicised. Over the years the EU has been very good at creating free markets for goods and capital. We are now moving in the direction of creating a free market for people so that they can move around with their families and partners. The remarks by Mr Oostlander give cause for some alarm, because if we go down the avenue of saying that there must be a clear concept of what a family is then we are undermining the whole process. Mr Oostlander spoke of the official registration of partnerships with the government. I think Mr Santini would agree that is a difficult and contentious area and one which, if reopened, will negate much of the valuable work that has been done. This common position may not be ideal. There are areas where we on this side of the House would have liked more progress, be this the three-to-six-month timescale, the prevention of expulsions or the definition of humanitarian reasons, etc. There are aspects that are not perfect. However, if it is an improvement on what we have at the moment then we should support it. It is indeed an improvement, we will be voting for it and I commend it to the House.

Political group: PSE
There are plenty of arguments as to why we should reject the ten countries whose governments wish to accede to the EU. Some, such as Slovakia, Hungary and Romania, discriminate against the large Roma populations there. There have been complaints against Hungary and Cyprus for discrimination against homosexuals. Poland, just as Ireland once did, wants to retain the freedom to deny women the right to abortus provocatus for all eternity. Estonia and Lithuania have tried to deny equal rights to their large Russian minority, whom they hold responsible for the former occupation. Cyprus could involve the European Union in a war against Turkey. The current Member States are furthermore complaining about corruption, labour migration and the high cost of relief funds. I believe that it is at least as important that these countries are being subjected to a neoliberal acquis, that public services are breaking down and large sections of the population are being condemned to the long-term perpetuation of the poverty that has arisen over the past ten years. Yet it is the inhabitants of these countries, and no one else, who must determine whether they want to belong to the European Union. They are being given the opportunity to speak out on this in referendums everywhere except in Cyprus. I do not want to take that right away from them in order to protect ourselves or by knowing what is good for them better than they do themselves. By rejecting the Brok Report, I am upholding my agreement with enlargement, which I announced on 20 November 2002.

Political group: GUE-NGL
The aim of the directive, which is to establish common rules for sea ports in order to increase their role in terms of transport and give them pride of place in intermodality, by means of transparent access to port services, must not be achieved regardless of the cost, in other words by forsaking a high level of maritime safety, effective environmental protection and satisfactory employment conditions for workers in this sector. The directive under examination, however, calls into question the social rights of workers, the subject of self-help being the paradigmatic example: it would allow self-handling to be entrusted to ‘land-based personnel’ employed by shipowners, which would probably lead to this work being taken away from professional docker workers and other qualified technical personnel and given instead to cheaper, unqualified workers. The risks of social dumping are clear. I shall therefore vote to reject this directive, a position that will certainly not be shared by the majority of the EP. That is why I shall then vote for any amendments that seek to increase the protection of workers provided for by the text.

Political group: PSE
Once again, whilst I was taking part in a programme on a major Italian commercial television channel and was answering the questions of pensioners who were asking me for information on how to claim their pensions, being so used to giving such replies, I fell asleep whilst we were on air. I saw again Fatuzzo the seafarer who, aged 20, was sailing a magnificent cruise ship from New York to the Bahamas and back - the good ship Oceanic - flying a European flag: there were dances, elegant clothes, money being spent everywhere. In short, a trip on a luxury ship, and - unlike the Titanic - in complete safety. Mr Sterckx has done a good job with this report, but I voted against it because, despite its good intentions, it does not succeed in ensuring this safety. I would also like to ask when we will have the security of always being able to draw our pensions?

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, my group proposes to support the present motion, which we have also signed, because I believe it is right for the European Union to support the solution that has been found in Macedonia and which accommodates the Albanian population. I would have preferred it if we could have found a solution that all the parties in Parliament could have voted for. We would rather leave it to the Macedonians to discuss where the process broke down, Mrs Pack. I have it on good authority that they were only trivial issues, and that the government could have accommodated the opposition in this respect. I do not know. I do not think that is the be-all and end-all. What matters most is that a solution is found which we can all subscribe to. Even though this notion is unpopular in this House – indeed the prevailing mood is the smaller the unit, the more divided the systems, and the more separatist the movements, the better – I would like to make the point here, which is one we have also discussed at some length in the delegation with our counterparts from Macedonia, that we must be clear about the fact that their own Albanian-language institutions should help to promote social cohesion in Macedonia and not create divisions. That is an important aspect we should not lose sight of.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, the reform process set in motion by the 1992 agricultural reform and continued by Agenda 2000 is to be carried forward and adjusted to reflect changing circumstances. The Commission's proposals are a basis for discussions after 2007, as a whole raft of issues and problems correctly identified in the paper remain to be resolved. Nevertheless, the common agricultural policy was successful, and those elements that made it successful still need to be defended. I am quite convinced that there will be major debates on the decisions reached by the Heads of State and Government in Brussels as regards how to deal with future expenditure under EU agricultural policy within the predetermined financial framework and including the ten candidate countries. Looked at in that light, the motion for a resolution is just a snapshot and not a reform paper. Freezing the agriculture budget at its 2006 level as from 2007 means an annual cut in agricultural support for farmers in the existing Member States, which will be hard or even impossible to achieve in 2003, the year before the elections. It will not be possible to reach a consensus to the effect that farmers should meet the cost of enlargement, yet it looks suspiciously as if that is what is intended. In her speech, the President-in-Office mentioned that there are proposals on the table for the milk sector. I would like to ask you, Madam President-in-Office, when you think these proposals will be implemented. Before 2008 or not?

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, inevitably Commissioner Liikanen was not in a position other than to reply formally to the debate and say that he had heard what had been said and would pass it on. That is not very satisfactory from the point of view of the many Members of this House who made important points. I request that Mr Barnier gives a written summary of his response to these points.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, every country in Europe, and France in particular, needs to respond to the distress of prisoners by considering how to reform the methods and structures which govern penitentiary administrations so as to show greater respect for the dignity of prisoners, irrespective of the seriousness of their crime. The desire to create prison conditions which are as humane as possible, without resorting to demagogy, is broadly shared and strengthened as and where necessary by the vigilance shown by all the associations working to defend human rights. It would therefore appear to be perfectly logical to call on all countries, especially those who are candidates for membership of the European Union, to support this move. Having said that, our debate here today was provoked by our reaction to the hunger strike currently taking place in Turkish prisons. However, I am pleased that it will not culminate in a righteous recommendation by Parliament, which is often perceived to be overly keen on preaching and which would do well, from time to time, to put its own house in order. I am pleased because I think that, when it is not a vulgar sham, a hunger strike is a suicidal undertaking which my personal beliefs forbid me from encouraging. That is why I welcome the fact that my political group and, I think, the majority here in the House, will not be tempted to bang a drum in order to milk the current crisis for all it is worth. Naturally, I hope that the Turkish authorities will resolve this crisis quickly, but I would hate an irresponsible attitude on our part to have a domino effect and set off a series of equally distressing crises.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, speaking as the rapporteur concerned with the implementation, via an Article 169 programme to which EUR 600 million was allocated, of a partnership between Europe and the developing countries in the field of research to combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, I should like to congratulate Mr Wijkman. We are of course all aware of the urgency and gravity of the situation. Five million people die each year of one of these three diseases. Almost 40 million people are infected by AIDS/HIV, and 90% of them live in developing countries, most of those – 70% – in sub-Saharan Africa. We are also seeing tuberculosis making a comeback. As for malaria, which reappeared in the seventies, it is once again affecting countries in which it had been eradicated. There is no need to say any more, except that the European Union owes it to itself to adopt, quickly, a strategy to combat these diseases effectively. The regulation that we are discussing here defines the framework for Community action. It also creates the legal basis for Europe’s contribution, the aim being to encourage research to develop medicines, treatments and vaccines and to facilitate access to them. This is absolutely vital, because only 10% of research activities concern diseases which are responsible for 90% of disease in the world. We therefore need to carry out public research and encourage the private sector to invest in it. We must also, above all, ensure that these medicines are suitable for the living conditions that prevail in the countries concerned, so that they can be distributed via health systems which are worthy of the name. Finally, we must ensure that the prices are not prohibitive, and here we come back to the problem of intellectual property. I support this report, Mr President, and I hope that it will be adopted at first reading.

Political group: GUE-NGL
I abstained from voting on the resolution on the trans-Atlantic partnership, even though it is, as a whole, an excellent one, containing as it does features that European Socialists, and Europeans generally, see as essential, namely the reaffirmation of the desire for multilateralism in trans-Atlantic policy, the importance accorded to international law, and the preservation of European social legislation with the adoption of Mr Obiols’ Amendment No 16. We adopted Amendment No 26, however, tabled by the Group of the European People’s Party , which stresses that European security strategy should take into account the US national security strategy and that the EU should be especially prudent in the positions it takes relating to situations that the United States appears to interpret in a different way. The partnership is in serious danger of being nothing more than a monologue. The Europeans will never get the Americans to declare themselves ready to sign international conventions against torture and antipersonnel mines or upholding the Kyoto convention, the International Criminal Court or the application of the Geneva Convention to Guantanamo. On the other hand, it might be thought that, should the European Union not undertake to take US strategy into account, it would be not only the NATO headquarters in Brussels that would be under threat but that of the European institutions too!

Political group: PSE
Tobacco growing plays a very important role, especially in the less favoured regions of Europe. About 130 000 landowners and 400 000 seasonal workers are involved in tobacco production and processing in the European Union. These figures alone are enough to justify and provoke a study on the social and economic costs of suppressing aid to tobacco, even before we get to the political debate on this crop’s future in the European Union. In any case, restrictions on tobacco growing in Europe would have no effect on consumption except to turn European consumers towards tobaccos from outside the European Union, which are of much poorer quality and certainly more harmful to health. Added to this is the fact that Commission document COM (2001) 264 of 15 May 2001 on sustainable development stresses that ‘political leaders should determine the pros and cons for other political contexts and take them into account. A thorough evaluation of all the effects of a proposed political action must include estimates of its environmental and social impact both inside and outside the EU.’ As European Republicans, we therefore believe that the Commission should make a concerted effort to promote studies and research into possible alternative crops that would maintain the rural fabric in a sustainable manner. We agree with the draftsman, Mrs Redondo Jiménez, that the political debate on tobacco should be held over until Parliament has received an evaluation report on the management of the fund, with any proposed amendments and improvements. For the reasons given above, we say ‘no’ to the under-cover gradual elimination of subsidies for tobacco growing; we call for the current contribution levels for the research fund activities to be maintained for 2002/2003/2004, since agronomic research is today one of the most important ways of making tobacco consumption less harmful to health; and we support the amended report by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.

Political group: ELDR