GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in essence, all our objectives can be summed up in health well into old age, as well as, at the end of the day, the utilisation of the gigantic research potential of small and medium-sized enterprises. We know that the JRC focuses its efforts on nutrition, chemical products and health, as well as, in particular, the environment and sustainable development, technology foresight, reference materials and measurements, but also public safety and the combating of fraud. I would particularly like to thank Mr Schwaiger for pushing so hard for a code of safety standards for atomic power stations, because it is the prevention and containment of accidents that has recently become especially important, and Parliament is agreed that atomic power stations and atomic materials need a specialised approach in order to guarantee their safety in future. It should also be said that, of the EUR 11 billion allocated to specific priorities, at least 15% must of course be used for research projects for small and medium-sized enterprises, with a special allocation of EUR 430 million for horizontal research projects. Then there is the ‘stairway to excellence’, where particular account has to be taken of SMEs, just as European SMEs and European industry will in future work more closely with universities and colleges, institutes of higher education and research organisations. Finally, there is a need for small and medium-sized enterprises also to be allowed to cooperate with small research groups, newly established and distant research sites and with organisations in the candidate countries. I believe that it is of vital importance to involve small and medium-sized enterprises, especially in the networks of excellence and in the integrated projects. We must surely be aware that the 18 million small and medium-sized enterprises in Europe account for two-thirds of the workforce and, in the final analysis, for 80% of tax revenue, a fact which, I believe, entitles them to work closely with others in research and thus help to shape Europe's future. For us, at the end of the day, good research policy, skilfully applied, makes for the best social policy, for it is always the case that first you have to create the necessary economic conditions, and then you can be generous when distributing the gains.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it was on 8 May 1945 that Germany was at last obliged to capitulate. For six years, Germans had laid waste most of Europe, where millions of people were robbed, imprisoned, transported, starved and killed, and, in the extermination camps, murdered millions of Jews. We owe the tremendous defeat of the Germans not to the troops of the Western Allies alone, but primarily to the people of the Soviet Union. The Second World War claimed the lives of 20 million Soviet citizens, who served with the Red Army, starved in the siege of Leningrad, and were forced to labour as slaves. It was the Red Army that liberated the extermination camps. Today we are denying their grandchildren access to Europe, and Kaliningrad, intended as territorial compensation for the German internecine war, is separated from Russia. That is disgusting and shameful. I would ask you to remember with a minute’s silence all those people who died in the war against Fascism, especially the soldiers of the Red Army and hence all those who made today’s Europe possible in the first place.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, the European Union will only be able to play its historic role if it decides to be more than the sum of its Member States. As representatives of the European peoples without their own state, we want the European Union to be a community of citizens, on the one hand, and correspond to the reality of peoples and regions and their political entities, on the other. This reality is not sufficiently recognised in the texts before us, if at all. Some Member States are struggling just as hard with granting autonomy to these various cultural and political entities as with relinquishing competences to create a federal Europe. In fact, this would mean a democratic U-turn which they do not seem to be prepared to make. This is once again evident from the way in which the IGC is going and from the expectations which are being expressed for Feira. In our opinion, the institutional reforms which it is hoped Feira will bring are sound but insufficient in our eyes. We fear, for example, that the refusal to develop a true federal authority will result in a common foreign and security policy which cannot really function properly. The establishment of a rapid reaction military force, therefore, threatens to become an expensive alibi which could only lead to the rapid militarisation of conflicts. This would fit in perfectly with the new arms spiral which can be set in motion under the guise of the American rocket programme and with the backing of NATO and non-NATO countries.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, the Parmalat case is difficult to solve because we have not got to the bottom of the responsibilities and complex and ambiguous mechanisms that allowed it to happen. To consider it to be just an Italian scandal is a limited outlook. It is, in fact, an international affair of vast proportions, in which internationally important banks are involved. The losses that savers have had to endure are, however, very clear to everyone. It is them that we must think about and we must look into, and encourage, the application of adequate measures, such as specific types of insurance, able to indemnify small-time savers involved in the collapse. Moreover, what has been described as the largest financial and accounting fraud ever registered in Europe dramatically highlighted the serious lack of rigorous and effective rules that are capable of preventing cases of the falsification of company accounts which, in accordance with a recent Italian law, have been decriminalised. It is essential that, in a common market such as the European one where the Treaties state that the constitutional principles of free circulation of people, goods, capital and services apply, the Commission intervene in order to give greater protection to citizens against this type of fraud, and that it does so through Community measures that are capable of stepping up the monitoring of accounts audits for Union companies. This, however, is not enough. L'Italia dei valori, chaired by Mr Di Pietro and part of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, calls for strict rules to be established at European level to prevent any type of unfair economic or financial assistance at a company or individual level among companies active in the 25 Member States and structures operating tax havens in ‘rogue states’. In particular, a strict economic embargo, binding in this sense, would force the whole of the international community, including the USA, to act in an honest manner, so as to be able to prevent the reoccurrence of unfortunate episodes such as those that we have been talking about.

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, this supplementary and amending budget 5/99 is an important step towards ensuring that the new anti-fraud office, OLAF, will soon have the power to act. I welcome the fact that the expert recommendations provided by the OLAF monitoring committee were also taken full account of on this occasion. This was not always the case, as we have heard. This has been put right, which is good for OLAF. It underlines our desire to secure OLAF’s independence. The decision as to how these posts are to be filled will lie with the future director of OLAF. Last night, the Committee on Budgetary Control established a hearings procedure for the candidates. It is our intention to compile a list of three names which the President of our House will then be able to decide on in concert with the Council and the Commission. As such, we are following the recommendations provided by our Committee on Constitutional Affairs. What we still need from the Commission though, in order to be able to start the process – and I agree with Mrs Theato here and am specifically addressing this comment to you Mrs Schreyer – is a formal decision on the candidates to be considered for the post. There were 450 applicants. The OLAF monitoring committee whittled this down to a list of 11 names. Vice-President Kinnock and you yourself informed us that the competent services of the Commission have endorsed the monitoring committee’s vote. As far as I know, however, the Commission has not yet reached a formal decision itself and rumour even has it that the Commission is to decide on a list today that now comprises only four names. Would you be so kind as to correct me if I am wrong. It is quite clear that such a decision would be in violation of the OLAF Regulation, which sets out that you as a Commission, require a positive statement from the monitoring committee. Parliament and the Council decided that this is how it should work, so as to ensure that the new director would be independent of the Commission. But you only have a positive statement of this kind for the list of 11, not for a list featuring more names and not for one featuring fewer names either. I am not nit-picking; the point is that as this process unfolds, it must be beyond all doubt. Particularly in view of the incidents of the last few months and the crisis in the Commission, it would, to my mind, be a severe handicap if the new director were to be appointed without EEC legislative procedure having been fully complied with.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, like the Northern Ireland conflict, the conflict in Indonesia is far from being a religious conflict. The fanaticism merely disguises itself as religion. In reality, these are ethnic conflicts with a very deep root, namely the Indonesian Government's Transmigrasi programme which attempts to resettle the population of the main islands to the other islands on a systematic basis. The evidence for my theory can be found in the Moluccas, the old Christian Spice Islands, where there are conflicts between Christians and Muslim immigrants. In Borneo, there is a similar conflict between adherents of the animist religions and the incoming Muslims. In Aceh, the same problem occurs between the indigenous Muslim subjects of the old sultanate of Aceh and immigrants from the main islands such as Java and Sumatra. In my view, it is essential to point out to the Government that it must halt this migration and shelve the artificial resettlement programmes, for otherwise, this massive country, which stretches from Australia to the Asian continent, will no longer hold together and will disintegrate. (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, Mr Ebner, I would like, at this juncture, to bring in an oral amendment. With your permission, I would like to replace ‘in the official language’ in the last sentence with ‘in the official language or languages’.

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, I should like to join all the other Members who have congratulated Mrs Paulsen, both on the quality of her report and on her openness to the various amendments that have been tabled. I would like to state at the outset that when we talk about undesirable substances and products, we immediately tend to think of dioxins and PCBs, but there are also heavy metals and, more generally, long-lasting organic pollutants which are by and large, as we know today, hormonal disrupters. In other words, even tiny amounts of these substances can have an effect. We must therefore adopt limit values, which are arrived at realistically, since our environment is already polluted by this type of substance, but which, at the same time, must also be as low as possible in order to limit the risks. I find it quite strange that the Commission’s proposal does not specify any limit values for PCBs and that it proposes limit values for dioxins only in the case of citrus pulp, which is really quite bizarre. The truth is that this is the result of a disastrous event that occurred two years ago. Incredibly high levels of dioxin were found in citrus pulp from Brazil due to the drying process to which they were subjected. Where heavy metals are concerned, there are many inconsistencies. The value limit for fish meal, for example, is different to the level proposed for non-marine animal derived products. On all these matters, my Group has tabled amendments, which, broadly speaking, have been accepted by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy – to whom I am grateful – despite the vote against by the Members. I hope that the latter will change their minds for the plenary sitting, because I cannot see any arguments that could justify the inconsistencies in the Commission’s draft proposal. I therefore think that, given the prevailing attitude in the House, we can face the vote with confidence and hope to achieve a majority, which will enable us to put our point of view across at second reading.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs Roth-Behrendt, according to a Flemish saying, prevention is better than cure, and I assume that this pearl of wisdom is used in each of our Member States and regions. I would like to expressly congratulate Mrs Roth-Behrendt on her report. My group has not tabled any amendments and is in full agreement with you. We give you our full support and have every confidence in you. After all, the proposal follows on from a pledge which was made previously regarding the follow-up committee. This is therefore to be welcomed. I would like to home in on the following issues. Firstly, it makes sense to include regionalisation and regional differentiation in the goal-oriented fight against TSE. If you are in any doubt about this, just ask my Scottish and Welsh colleagues. Secondly, there are tests for a rapid diagnosis and to identify TSE in cattle. We, as Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection want to make these methods available so as to improve our monitoring procedures, and rightly so. As it happens, we all know that these tests are not yet scientifically accurate and that when these tests are applied, we do not know precisely whether infection actually occurs at each stage of the disease. I believe that these tests are at least heading in the right direction and that we should support the scientific research carried out in this field. Thirdly, I welcome the requirement to destroy or remove the entire herd on farms where the disease has broken out. Fourthly, there is indeed a need for additional legislation for products such as cosmetics, medicines and pharmaceutical preparations which are excluded from the present proposal. Finally, I would like to draw your attention to a number of amendments which actually provide for a number of points to be lifted from the appendix and included in the body of the text. I think that it is important to bring about more democracy, to get away from comitology, and to increase parliamentary control. These are cardinal amendments, to my mind.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, first of all I must declare a personal interest, I have a son-in-law who was, and is, a refugee from the Krajina in Croatia. Even if it is now technically possible to return, much more has to be done to make the return of Serbs to Croatia and the Krajina in particular positively welcome. Much physical restoration is required in that sad part of Croatia. We in the European Union must insist that this is positively encouraged and not just a nominal gesture. Our financial contributions should be on that condition and I would appreciate a reassurance from the Commission that this aspect will be taken into account. My second point refers to Serbia itself. Even if there is the happy, democratic outcome, which we hope for in Serbia, there will still be great resentment resulting from what happened with the Kosovo campaign and our recent relationships with Serbia. This will not be overcome immediately. We in Europe must be prepared to rise above any peevish reactions to those sentiments. The top priority, not just for Serbia but for all the Balkans including Bulgaria and Romania, is to restore normal transport links in the whole area and bring Serbia with all its hurts back into the European fold.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, extraordinary situations sometimes do call for extraordinary actions. I would have liked the President of the European Parliament, after the vote on Wednesday, to call for a lunchtime demonstration in support of peace in the Middle East. We have a wonderful atrium, which is at other times the venue for celebrations. We have a wonderful square in front of the building. All our aides, all our people here, would be able to join in. All we need is a microphone, and if that is too much of a problem, then I would do my bit to get one. I believe that an extraordinary action of this kind would send a strong signal that Europe is not willing to accept this spiral of violence in the Middle East. Those were powerful images on Wednesday of all days, the most significant day for a peaceful solution in the Middle East. I ask you, with your colleagues in the Conference of Presidents, to give some thought to that. (Applause)

Political group: PSE
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, a short while ago, in reply to Question No 5, you told us that the Council considers that it has an obligation to get human rights respected throughout the world. I assume that means from the Arctic to the Antarctic, with the United States of America located somewhere in between. You also told us that the way in which it does so depends on the level of relations it has with the country in question. Is the level of relations which the Council has with the United States of America such that it does not allow it to raise the issue of the human rights of these five prisoners with the government of the United States? Or perhaps it has to do with the issue denounced in Question No 20 by Mr Patakis, in other words that the Council relies on the United States for the European Union's policy on Cuba and related issues?

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, I would also like to thank the three rapporteurs for their fine reports and add that I definitely believe that these reports indicate that we consider the budget a political instrument. The three reports establish a number of obvious political priorities. In particular, I should like to highlight Mr Costa Neves’ report. It contains a follow-up to the decision made at the Lisbon Summit last year and confirmed at the Stockholm Summit, namely that we must create the most competitive economy in the EU within the next ten years. I think this is a splendid priority, and we must ensure that it is reflected in the Budget, especially within the area of what are called internal Community policies. I am also delighted that we are continuing the work of ensuring that structural fund appropriations are followed up so that what we commit ourselves to is also what is put into practice and so that a proper balance between commitment and payment appropriations is established. In collaboration with the Liberal group, I have put forward an amendment to the effect that we must continue with the reform of the funding under the so-called ‘A 30 lines’. Some organisations are funded year after year and actually become dependent on these funds. This is something that must be addressed. As a parliamentarian, I believe we must support the Commission’s work on ensuring transparent management of the funds so that taxpayers can be certain that efficient management is in place and that the political objectives are being fulfilled. The argument that ‘we are used to being funded’ must not be the decisive factor, and there must be the possibility of innovation and new initiatives. Finally, I would like to add that it is important that we continue to support the Commission’s reform through our prioritising of the Budget. It is essential for the EU that the Commission has a good reputation externally and that there should be no doubt that we have a good and stable administration. In this respect, we should obviously take account of the future significance of enlargement for our administration .

Political group: ELDR
Madam President, serious international crises have a habit of highlighting national differences between the EU Member States. Although the Union played a key and successful role in the wake of the conflicts in the Balkans and Afghanistan we were unable to act in time and effectively to prevent, for example, the tragedy that occurred in the former Yugoslavia. The Iraq war has also highlighted differences between the Member States resulting from their history, geopolitics and political priorities. The internal political situation in the different Member States makes the dispute an even more heated one. You do not have to be especially cynical to think that the objective of guaranteeing common European security is still a utopian one. It would nevertheless seem at present that NATO’s importance is dwindling and that Europe should take more responsibility for its own security and defence policy. General Morillon’s creditable report therefore comes at a very good time. Perhaps the global political crisis that is going on and the threatening images it conjures up will inspire us to make a real effort to strengthen Europe’s voice and its capacity for action. It is not enough that we should set ambitious goals. We must also be resolved and practical. That is why the European Convention should strengthen the Commission’s role in foreign policy. Unfortunately, however, things appear to be moving in the opposite direction and the intergovernmental option has gained strength. Once again there is a clash between speech and action. As the work of the Convention continues, at the same time there is visibly increased activity on the part of certain Member States in outlining a common defence policy. It is realistic to work on the assumption that there will be differences within the Union with regard to how quickly things progress, as has also been the case with Schengen and Economic and Monetary Union. It is important, however, to make sure that there are no closed clubs created that not all have access to. It would furthermore be a good idea to become more familiar with the aims and needs of the foreign and security policies of different Member States. The Greek Foreign Minister, Mr Papandreou, has put forward a proposal for such a scheme. I think it should be put into effect. As, for example, we know the differences that result from geopolitics, we will also be able to identify the potential for cooperation.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, I would like to point out, in support of what you have said, firstly, that Mr Fischler had informed me that he was unwell and was therefore not able to be here with us today. I must say that Mr Fischler has always attended other debates. Since he is unwell, a case of force majeure, we must of course simply reiterate the President’s wishes for his speedy recovery. I think we must go ahead with this debate since we have already spent a lot of time preparing the reports scheduled for today, essentially the Miguélez report. These are very important issues and we have managed to have them debated during this January part-session, which was difficult since there were institutional aspects to be resolved. And furthermore, we are holding the debate on a Thursday, which is not usual for fisheries, and the reports will be voted on on a Thursday morning. Therefore, as chairman of the committee, I would request that we go ahead with the debate despite the fact that the Commissioner is not present and that we send him our best wishes for a speedy recovery.

Political group: PPE-DE