GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
The proposal for a Council recommendation on cancer screening is particularly important for informing and educating the public, raising awareness about premonitory symptoms, timely diagnosis and more effective treatment. Alongside proposals for mammography screening for women aged 50-69, for faecal occult blood testing of people aged 50-74 and for cervical smears for women aged 20-30, other urgent actions are needed. One of these is special programmes in selected workplaces in which, because of the environment, there is a serious risk of cancer. Another action is special programmes and diagnostic tests in universities and higher education in general, so that watching out for cancer becomes a forced 'routine' from a young age.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, it was as if Europe was drowsing. Its one dream seemed to be comfort and peace. Suddenly the shock of the brutal terrorist attacks in New York profoundly shook its confidence and its hedonism. Europe suddenly felt vulnerable and unprepared. After all, its hard-won fundamental freedoms were being threatened by mysterious terrorist networks, which nonetheless appeared to be dominated by Islamist religious proselytism. This violent and anti-modernist proselytism is anti-Western by definition. However, this does not authorise cultural cretinism and historic ignorance leading to an abusive fusion between Islam and the aberrant, irrational and sectarian assertions of the perpetrators of the attacks. It was not only the United States, the target of these sinister attacks, which was put to the test. Europe was also put to the test and the European Union has to do some deep soul-searching. In the immediate aftermath, still in shock, the European Union proved equal to the occasion at the Brussels Summit. It was fast, clear and precise in its emergency responses. But, now what? Europe cannot in future act in such a spontaneous, opportunistic and superficial way. Europe cannot be a plaything of destiny, a destiny plotted by others. What has been established in Ghent and Laeken is that Europe should completely rethink its project and its role in light of the new world order and adopt a clear guideline for the troubled times ahead. Without becoming unduly pessimistic about the human condition, Europe must be less ingenuous in the face of the dangers that will arise in the future. Europe must unite more strongly on the economic level, the political level, the military level and in its internal security. That is obvious. But how is it to do so? What are its priorities beyond fighting relentlessly against terrorism? What are the new aims of the European project? Will enlargement continue to take place on the same terms? Will it not be necessary, from now on, to speed up the accession of, for example, Turkey to the European Union? Will it not be the most elementary common sense to give absolute priority to the strategy for the Mediterranean and provide new impetus to partnerships with the Muslim countries?

Political group: PSE
Mr President, the presidency of the Bureau has acted quite correctly in supporting a Member State with regard to the erroneous and unjust attitude of Morocco – a privileged partner of the European Union, as has just been made clear – in the light of action that is unacceptable from a legal and political standpoint. It is scandalous that a Basque MEP such as Mr Ortuondo Larrea should be more concerned about goats on Perejil Island than about the situation of ETA victims, with regard to whom he has never shown concern or tabled a single question in this Chamber. Nor has he done so with regard to the fight against terrorism. His absence from the debate we have just held reveals his true colours, and discredits anyone who has the nerve to ask this question and to say what we in this Chamber have had to hear. Does the Council not think that, for the reasons I have given, this question is meaningless?

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, if the Dehaene Group’s report is to be summarised in the course of one minute, which is what I shall try to do now, it might be said to contain what Swedish supporters of the EU promised would never happen. If the Group’s proposals were implemented, the EU would take a decisive step towards being transformed into a State in its own right. The remaining right of veto is to be taken away and the influence of small countries reduced; the President of the Commission is to become a sort of Prime Minister in an ever more powerful European Commission, and the EU is to become a military union. What is especially negative is the fact that the Group proposes that the Member States’ power over changes to the Treaty is to be drastically reduced. Where large parts of the present Treaty are concerned, the Group wants it to be possible for changes to be made without these being approved by the Member States’ parliaments and without any requirement of unanimity. It is a proposal which is directed specifically against the opportunities which Member States and their populations have to wield democratic influence on the EU’s development.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, I voted in favour of intensifying trade relations with the United States, Canada, Japan, Korea, Australia and New Zealand, which is surely a positive step. I hope that cooperation will be intensified in future to bring about also a direct action to improve the standards of living of the elderly in these countries. I also hope that we can examine the current pension systems of these countries to see if we can derive any suggestions for improvements of the legal conditions which govern the lives of the elderly in the European Union.

Political group: PPE-DE
I must say that I am pleased with the Commission’s reply and positive attitude to seek formulas and implement measures that can effectively control the worst enemy of freedom and democracy: terrorism. But what is the problem, Commissioner? The problem is the urgent need to lay down some concrete deadlines for these measures to be implemented as quickly as possible. As you know, Commissioner, the European Parliament has urged that the European search and capture order should be pushed ahead as an instrument providing the necessary flexibility and speed to facilitate the capture, prosecution and sentencing of those who in European territory are violating the most fundamental right of all; the right to life. It would be a real aberration if in the new European Union area of freedom, security and justice the law served precisely to support those who committed such a despicable crime.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, at its first reading, Parliament did nothing about this directive because it appeared to be a technical directive which presented no difficulties. But the Council later opened up a Pandora’s box by introducing two supposedly technical amendments: one, to Article 3, which provides for a sort of legislative delegation with continuous reference to the Regulation of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe; and another, to Article 6, extending the time limit for the entry into force of the directive owing to the need for an adaptation period for the industry. Parliament, as a result of these amendments introduced by the Council on the recommendation of the Commission, felt obliged to review the text. The time limit seems reasonable, bearing in mind the delay which this directive is experiencing. The deadline for mopeds has been extended from 1 January to 1 July 2002, so that the industry may have a slightly longer adaptation period. But above all, the Council has re-addressed the question of commitology. The original decision laid down a certain type of committee, specifically the committee mentioned in Article 3(A) which, in the meantime, was disbanded last July. That committee no longer exists and therefore the rapporteur, displaying a high degree of responsibility and intelligence, has proposed an advisory type committee. It seems inappropriate that in the case of provisions of this type, which the Council describes as technical, the Commission feels set on the idea of a management committee. I hope that the rapporteur maintains his proposal to adopt an advisory committee, which would be most appropriate for this type of regulation. Maintaining the mechanism of a management committee is complicated and, furthermore, it would have to be done by amending the original directive on the type-approval of motor vehicles. Therefore, I hope that, on the basis of the agreements which this Parliament adopts this week, the Council and the Commission will consider the possibility of definitively laying down the advisory committee procedure.

Political group: PSE
Madam President, I was waiting for the vote on the Minutes to be completed before responding to Mr Vander Taelen. You will all have noted that each of the waste bins is marked to show what it is to be used for, so there is in fact a specific paper and card bin. So we do have this kind of sorting of waste in Parliament at Strasbourg. (Applause) Report (A5-0066/1999) by Mr Napolitano, on behalf of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, on the amendments to the Rules of Procedure following the Interinstitutional Agreement of 25 May 1999 on the internal investigations conducted by the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) President. – I have received a request for urgent procedure, in accordance with Rule 112 of the Rules of Procedure, from the Group of the and the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party. The request for urgent procedure is motivated by the fact that it is imperative to respect the interinstitutional commitments on OLAF, implemented by the other institutions concerned.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, Commissioner, as we speak about energy efficiency today, we naturally think primarily of the security of energy supplies, and security of supply is undoubtedly an issue that is very high on the agenda of the European Union. For that reason we wish to aim for a reduction in energy intensity. The political objective for us at the present time is a 2.5% reduction. It goes without saying that the widely divergent starting points of the 15 Member States must be taken into account when such targets are set. That is precisely why we believe that this target must be binding, and the process should begin in that country where the level of energy efficiency is highest, the country most capable of effecting such an improvement. We also believe that the share of combined heat and power generation in the energy market could be increased to 18% by 2010 and 25% by 2015, because that would also put electricity supply on a secure basis. Cogeneration, of course, can be achieved with fossil fuels as well as with renewable forms of energy. We are backing renewable energy in particular, and there are encouraging examples in this domain, such as pellet-fuelled heating, with which heat and power can be cogenerated very efficiently. It is also important that the European Commission steps up its coordination effort in this area. Coordinating European initiatives is a highly demanding task, if we think of programmes such as SAVE, Altener or the Fifth Framework Programme for Research and Energy. Many programmes are available, but the important thing is to ensure that they are carefully targeted. My last point concerns public tendering and centralised procurement. Special consideration should be given in these contexts to small and medium-sized companies; to that end, the cost of new appliances and systems should be calculated on the basis of their entire life expectancy, including the price of total energy consumption over that period in addition to the purchase price.

Political group: PPE-DE
Madam President, I would just like to point out to Mr Poettering that the problem in this Parliament is ensuring that Members receive equal treatment. The response to the case of Mr Berlusconi does not ensure equal treatment: indeed, if Mrs Frassoni – myself, that is – had been the person concerned in this case, I am sure that the President would have acted differently. There is no doubt about it. Therefore, Mr Poettering, the matter in hand is that of the equality of Members. That is the issue we must tackle and that is why Mr Corbett's question must be resolved by referring the question of the waiver of the parliamentary immunity of Mr Berlusconi without delay to the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, precisely in order to preserve equality between all the 626 Members. We cannot continue to beat about the bush.

Political group: Verts-ALE
I abstained during the vote on Mr Garot's report, despite the fact that it backs development and reform in the direction of agricultural policy with decoupled premiums and strengthened rural policy. The report does not, however, take sufficient account of the restrictions that govern the funding of the Common Agricultural Policy. Even the financial leeway available impacts on the policy to be adopted. I should particularly like to draw your attention to paragraph 25, in which cofinancing for agricultural and rural policy is rejected. In my view, compulsory cofinancing is precisely one of the key instruments that can help adopt a common agricultural policy in the future.

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, I should like to draw your attention to the following. In the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, the amendments adopted today – with thanks to the plenary – have been adopted by the European Commission. Yesterday, at the end of the debate, the European Commission said that it refused to be responsible for five or six amendments. The way in which this was done at the end of yesterday’s debate is objectionable in my view. Why? Because only the rapporteur is informed about the reasons why legally correct amendments are not adopted after all. I therefore take the view that the Commission should justify its behaviour. We cannot tolerate things being done one way one day and a different way the next for no apparent reason. Additionally, the Commission should, in my view, reconsider the amendments that have now been adopted in a letter, and all my fellow MEPs should receive a copy of what should actually have been said in the debate. Thank you very much.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, it is not often that this Chamber witnesses real political drama. However, it did so on that day some two-and-a-half years ago when Parliament rejected the takeover directive. Nothing I have seen or heard since then has made me change my mind that what we did was not only wrong but also foolish. In an increasingly interdependent world, where the globe's economy is seamlessly linking together, the single greatest economic challenge we face in Europe – a challenge which we lose at our peril - is global competitiveness. We all know that we are very good at talking about it and we are equally bad at doing anything material to address the problem. Furthermore, whenever Europe has to face up eyeball to eyeball to the challenges posed by competitiveness, we funk it. We funked it that day two-and-a-half years ago, and we have regularly funked it since. We always use special pleading about the minutiae as an intellectual fig leaf to avoid the tough decisions. It must be said that it is all pretty transparent. To set the picture straight: I may be a British Conservative, but I am not the contemporary equivalent of the hard-faced men who made money out of the war. I am no Thatcherite – never have been – and I am not a Eurosceptic, but I think – some consider this to be an eccentric point of view – that we should deal with the world as it is and not the world as we would like it to be. If Europe is to deliver for its citizens – and it has to – our economy has to be competitive. Part of that state of competitiveness is to have a system of company law and capital markets that enables it to compete. It does not now, and that problem has to be dealt with. The proposals we are debating this afternoon are a miserable, insufficient response to today's world. However, we have to start from where we are. I hope Commissioner Bolkestein will be able to confirm that in the event of this proposal becoming law further proposals will follow this one, taking the matter forward – and rather more quickly than this one has been taken because, if it is not taken more quickly, if I am lucky I will be drawing my pension and if I am unlucky I shall be dead. Nevertheless, it is a single, wretched, shuffling step on the journey that Europe has to take. There is no choice. It is for that reason we shall support it as long as Mr Lehne's proposals are not amended or watered down. On balance – just – it is worse to reject it than to support it and for a Conservative that is a good enough reason to vote for it.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, when I was a law student, my tutors, among them my father, taught me the fundamental distinction that German philosophy draws between sollen – the world as it should be – and sein – the world as it really is. This morning, in adopting this resolution on relations between the European Union and the United Nations, it is quite possible that Parliament has indeed perceived the world as it should be. Unfortunately, there is no doubt that the resolution does not take sufficient account of the world as it really is, for better or for worse. In particular, it would be a loss to the world and Europe if we were, without any guarantees, to relinquish the United Kingdom’s status as a permanent member and even more so if we were to relinquish that of France. That is why I voted against.

Political group: PSE
This is an emotive subject, not least because of the title 'Human cloning'. Stem cell research would be a less tendentious title. But my purpose is to ask for calm reflection and consideration of the facts and the implications for us the human race, for our health and well-being, for the future of science and the health industry in Europe and, by no means least, for our spiritual well-being. So let us get some facts straight. Fact: human reproductive cloning is banned in the UK. There is no intention to change this and the UK industry has no intention of carrying out human reproductive cloning now or in the future. The research use of embryonic stem cells is a short-term response to a scientific need to discover ways of reprogramming adult cells. Fact: stem cell research is tightly regulated under a stringent act of Parliament by the highly respected and rigorous Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. It would perhaps be a good idea if other Member States were to have something similar. Fact: there have recently been interesting advances in adult stem cell research, but there still remain significant disadvantages compared with the unique characteristics of embryonic stem cells. The aim of research in embryonic stem cells is to find ways of using adult stem cells which overcome these disadvantages. So we come down to the basic dilemma. Is an embryo up to 14 days old a living being with the full rights of a living person or of a foetus? Rightly or wrongly, the UK and the US legislation have permitted this type of research for ten years and many benefits have resulted. And after consulting world-wide for many months the Donaldson report recommends extending such research for therapeutic purposes. The choice is yours, colleagues. You have to be true to your conscience and your faith but also consider the future well-being of your neighbour. Caring for your neighbour is also a Christian enjoinder. He may have Alzheimer's or Parkinson's or diabetes.

Political group: PPE-DE
The proposal of the European Commission already warranted our opposition, but the report by Mr Ribeiro e Castro warrants even greater opposition, because it accentuates the negative aspects of the original proposal. I shall highlight the following examples: - the seriousness of the prospect of there being ‘liaison officers who are dispatched by the various Member States’ without any monitoring by the police authorities; - the term ‘cooperation’ is not confined to the exchange of information, specifically about crime, but also covers the prevention and investigation of criminal offences, which is unacceptable. Due to the undisputed need for police cooperation in the EU in order to combat multinational crime organisations, cooperation could be undertaken by institutional, judicial and penal means without undermining national sovereignty. It would be more useful, then, for the European institutions to focus their concerns on the myriad police organisations already in place, created under the Maastricht and Schengen agreements and which operate without any democratic control or monitoring and which constitute serious breaches of the citizens’ rights and freedoms and of the sovereignty of the Member States themselves.

Political group: GUE-NGL
We voted in favour of this report despite the fact that, even in view of its limited objective – aid to associations which combat sexual violence and fight for women’s and children’s rights – the proposed budget is quite obviously insufficient. The report itself recognises this and lists the projects rejected due to lack of budgetary resources. We must, however, stress that, amongst the types of violence inflicted on women, who suffer not only sexual and domestic violence – they also suffer social violence which can in fact affect men as well, such as having to endure unacceptable working conditions. One example is working at night for women, which is permitted in industry by the European Parliament, or worse still, losing one’s job and one’s income. The inability to combat social violence and therefore prevent its consequences is also severely hampering efforts to combat domestic violence.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Madam President, you referred to Saint Petersburg and the June Summit, but you in fact have another Summit this week – with Russia. How are you going to address the issue of sustainable development in the discussions at the Summit with Mr Putin? Are you going to touch upon the issue of energy conservation? Are you going to broach the sensitive subject of new energy extraction in Arctic areas? Will you be going on to produce a report on the way in which Russia has complied with its earlier commitments from the previous Summit between the EU and Russia in which one of the promises made was to protect the environment in the Bay of Finland when constructing the harbour in Primorsk? Will you be demanding that Russia ratify the Esbo Convention on environmental impact assessment in a transboundary context? I am just mentioning some of the areas you touched upon at the most recent Summit. The situation in the Bay of Finland is very sensitive because a port is in the process of being constructed in Primorsk.

Political group: ELDR