GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Mr President, the Committee on Industry agreed to vote on this item only on condition that the Commission would come to the Chamber and give an explanation as to the procedure, and would give us certain assurances. I see that the Commissioner responsible, Mr Busquin, is in the Chamber. Commissioner Lamy gave that undertaking. We will not vote until we have had a statement from the Commission, because of the very strange procedure being adopted.

Political group: PSE
On account of its largescale, the EU is far removed from its residents. This makes it into the ideal breeding ground for favouritism and blurring of moral standard by a small powerful elite and its environment. This elite deems itself above the law that applies to others. It appears wise for shady and parasitic enterprises to maintain good relations with members of the European Commission and top officials. In 1999, the Commission official, Paul van Buitenen, gave us an insight into this practice in his book ‘Strijd voor Europa’ [The Fight for Europe]. Additionally, the unnecessary circulation of large sums of money in the form of funds invites abuse and confusion. Every government and every interested group will, time and again, try to attract the largest possible subsidies, and to gain maximum freedom in the spending thereof. We cannot change this attitude by thinking up ever more bureaucratic procedures and rules. Funds must be intended for solidarity with those who are economically the weakest and for re-distribution to the poorest regions, rather than for patronising conduct or prestige projects. Anything which fails to meet this standard should remain fully within the money circuit of the national government, without any interference from Brussels. I share the criticism by rapporteur Bösch on the European Commission, the stagnation of inquiries into fraud and nepotism, and OLAF’s powers that are too restricted.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, this is the International Year of Mountains, and I am glad that Mrs Frassoni, our co-Chairman, managed to have this put on the agenda, as it is an essential issue. Mountains are areas that contain some of the few remaining wildlife sanctuaries left in Europe. They need special status as sensitive areas. There is a clause in the Treaty for ultra-peripheral regions that provides for flexibility in adopting EU policies for special needs. This is what the Commission should be doing. It should declare mountains to be sensitive regions and then adopt legislation accordingly. It is disappointing that the Commission had no initiatives this year concerning mountains – not even a communication or a White Paper. That would have been very welcome. The Commission, whilst pushing for the International Convention on the Protection of the Alps, states that the protocols have been ratified, but not everyone has ratified the transport protocol. It is essential, in relation to the threat that highways and the trans-European networks are having on mountain regions, that these protocols are properly implemented, not just in relation to the Alpine regions but also in other regions such as the Pyrenees which are in danger. We also need conventions for those areas to protect them. In relation to priorities, there is a conflict between the trans-European networks and the needs and concerns of people. It is quite clear that the people who have opposed trans-European networks have voiced real and true concerns. Their concerns have been ignored to prioritise the trans-European networks. This is a conflict. Finally, I cannot understand why the Commissioner is not putting pressure on Member States to ensure that they comply with Natura 2000 in the Alpine regions or why we do not have officially adopted lists of sites of Community interest. That is disgraceful. I urge the Commissioner to put pressure on the Member States.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank the President-in-Office of the Council and the President of the European Commission for their lists of good intentions, which I am sure they will do everything to implement. Personally, I would like to concentrate on employment and on the objective of full employment which I think should be the prime, if not sole objective of the European Union, as all other objectives are only consequences of it. This applies to equality between men and women, the progress of social harmonisation, maintaining and developing public services, establishing sustainable development, etc. Full employment requires that the Stability and Growth Pact be reviewed, made more flexible and improved, that social partners be respected and listened to, that companies that make redundancies solely in order to make a profit be penalised, in particular when they have had public subsidies, that the European Council makes a major commitment and the research efforts be increased. Ladies and gentlemen, whatever some people think, the old liberal recipes have failed. Not enough jobs are being created, the Lisbon objectives have not been achieved and enlargement could aggravate the situation for the Fifteen and also for the ten new Member States that are soon going to join us. So yes, we need to make full employment almost the sole objective of the Union. I sincerely believe that it is vital for our future, which is why I wanted to say it again here, this morning, seriously and forcefully.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, do you not think that it would be a better idea – and I say this, of course, as a point of order, not as an intervention – if we waited a few more minutes for the Minister to arrive? It would be difficult, you understand, for me to respond to the representative of the Council if he did not have the opportunity to speak first. I therefore suggest that the sitting be suspended for less than 10 minutes, until nine o’clock, which is the time the Minister is due to arrive at Parliament.

Political group: PPE-DE
Yet again, the European Parliament has been asked to apply urgent procedure, concerning the question of fighting international terrorism. The procedure following a request from the Council is unacceptable, since the crucial questions about the deleting and adding of names to the list of persons and groups suspected of being terrorists has not been solved, leaving it up to the UN sanctions committee alone to decide the procedure. Furthermore, the EU regulation continuously refers to the resolution decided by the UN Sanctions Committee under the UN Security Council, without clearly specifying the role and part played by the EU Member States and the EU Court of Justice. Even though we welcome the amendments tabled by the political groups of the EP trying to lift the scope and the content of the regulation, we voted against the regulation in general due to the procedure chosen, the lack of any possibility of changing the content, or the procedures for drawing up the list.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, maritime safety is one of the challenges included in the Commission’s working programme for 2003. Unfortunately, we are currently facing the terrible accident involving the Prestige off the coast of Galicia, which makes this working principle all the more evident. I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the Commission, by means of its Vice-President, on its rapid reaction and its cooperation with the Spanish and Galician authorities in relation to this dramatic event. I would also like to acknowledge the Commissioner for Transport and the European Parliament’s Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, who have approved the Erika I and Erika II packages, which, had they already been applied, could perhaps have helped us to prevent an accident of this nature. In this respect, I would like to point out that the Directive on the monitoring of traffic – yet to be transposed – in Article 20, lays down the definition of areas of refuge, which, although they are vague, would allow vessels with problems to reach them to try to resolve them. We have examples such as the Erika, which was not authorised by the French authorities to enter the port of Saint Nazaire, or now the Prestige, not authorised to enter Galician ports, clearly due to the high ecological value of that coast. There should be further proposals for the creation of areas of refuge out to sea, sufficiently close so that vessels with problems can reach them and sufficiently far from coasts to prevent serious ecological problems, but which allow for immediate naval rescue actions with technical resources, both aerial and marine. And the measure, Madam Vice-President, if included in the Commission’s programme, could be applied urgently without the need to wait for transposition of the directive.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, I regret the fact that this House, when considering the report on the promotion of the use of biofuels, did not advocate making the addition of biodiesel mandatory. As I see it, the many benefits associated with their use mean that biofuels have to be promoted much more extensively as a competitive product. Let me remind you of our dependence on fossil fuels and of the fact that they are imported from third countries. I would also like to reiterate that we would thus be able to comply with the Kyoto protocol all the more speedily, and would remind you of the impetus this would give to rural areas and to the multifunctional role of agriculture. I spoke in favour of the addition of a mandatory quantity because, on this point too, I believe that a greater market share can be achieved more quickly. Despite this, though, I am very grateful, as I believe that these new directives and the new decisions taken by Parliament are a good thing in terms of an innovative future for agriculture and rural areas, and hence that what we have done today is a good start.

Political group: PPE-DE
The EU’s strict visa policy constitutes a major obstacle for people wishing to make their way to Europe. The fact that the visa requirements have been tightened up in recent years has unavoidably led to more cases of trafficking in human beings and to an increase in what is known as illegal immigration to the EU Member States. Those people who have been smuggled in or who have, by some other method, made their way into the European Union have often suffered great tragedies on the way. Once they have arrived in the EU, they have no rights or social protection at all. There is a list of more than 130 countries whose citizens require visas to enter the EU. There are not even as many as 50 states which are exempt from the visa requirement. That practice, whereby a visa requirement is the rule rather than the exception, is unworthy of a democratic Europe. The basic rule must be that people are entitled to travel freely into the EU, not the other way around. Europe must change its attitude to immigration. Within a few years’ time, there will be an acute labour shortage in the EU. That is why it is important for us to accept and welcome people seeking a better future in the EU’s Member States. A more generous visa policy is also a prerequisite for its being possible to pursue a common, humane policy on refugees and asylum. Through a positive policy on immigration, we can put a stop to organised crime and to the human tragedies for which traffickers in human beings are responsible. - Haug report (A5-0064/2001)

Political group: ELDR
I think if we go on for a few more minutes then these points of order will get Mr Byrne here in time for the debate. If we have to adjourn and take up another subject, we should have an urgency debate on transport to Strasbourg! It is quite intolerable that this House should be messed around by Commissioners who are unable to come here to respond to debates, particularly when, as we have already heard, the agenda has been changed to suit their convenience. That is not acceptable, and with the greatest respect to Commissioner Monti, he is not in a position to answer this debate because, for example, when I asked Commissioner Byrne in the Committee on the Environment whether it would be possible not to waste a lot of time on legal procedures but simply go straight to a legal injunction, he said that would be possible. That was not in the statement we heard from Mr Monti just now. I want Mr Byrne to be here to explain the position with regard to injunctions. That is not possible if he is not here. We should adjourn – if we have to move beyond the competition debate that is fine, but we should not have to wait until 9 o'clock because of the incompetence of whoever is responsible for the travel arrangements of Commissioners.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, let us not lose sight of the fact that the Färm report is about giving Parliament some guidelines for the conciliation that will take place on 19 July. If this year's conciliation is anything like last year's then I for one have no desire to attend. I can find something far better to do on a Friday than sit there facing the Council. We make our case on the three areas of discussion and the Council then ignores everything. Those three areas are agriculture, fisheries and CFSP. As regards agriculture we can make the points made by our colleagues in the Committee on Agriculture, especially the priorities which they see for agriculture, and we can talk about category 2 and the CFSP. I would like to pick up a point made by Commissioner Schreyer – and this is what I heard through the English interpretation, not the Finnish interpretation – when she said that EUR 59 million would be needed and the flexibility instrument would have to be used. One point is that we do not yet have a common fisheries policy. If and when we do have one, that will be a problem for next year. However, we still have the problem of the EUR 27 million and I await with interest to see what the Council will do with that sum on 19 July. Once we know the Council's intentions, then we can make some decision as to what to do ourselves. The third aspect is the CFSP. As Mr Titley said, we will be supportive of a lot of the things that have been mentioned, but the increase of EUR 10 million in the CFSP means that something else in category 4 has to give. That is a dilemma for us. There are areas where I would hope we can get decisions on 19 July, which makes it worthwhile for me at least to go. That will be on category 5 and probably as regards the category 4 flexibility instrument if there is going to be such a thing. It is obvious that the Council will never agree to a new flexibility instrument, but if we can get some agreement on using the existing emergency reserves in a similar way for category 4, which would be by a codecision procedure, we may make some headway. But category 5 is the big area. It is obvious that Council will want us to agree at their first reading to their proposals for category 5. I do not think that is possible but if we could get an agreement as to what we want to do throughout the year, then we can come to some conclusions. We should also give serious consideration to frontloading for next year in category 5. Mr Podestà's report has highlighted underspends in this year's budget. In category 5 last year, EUR 70 million was underspent. On average in category 5, there is EUR 50 million underspent each year. If we can take the underspends from this year and use a global ramassage for all the institutions, then we may find some method of frontloading to save the pains of next year's budget. Hopefully if we can do that, then we will make some progress with the Council and it will be worth going.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, honourable Members, as we all know, the European Union considers that economic and social cohesion between the regions is quintessential to life and has quantified this objective by setting a minimum cohesion target of 75% of the average per capita income of the 15 Member States. At the same time, and quite rightly too, our European Union has decided to integrate new Member States whose per capita income is demonstrably lower. Is it logical, is it ethical and, hence, is it acceptable in the final analysis for the second objective to be achieved at the expense of the first? By which I mean that enlargement will reduce the new average per capita income considerably. The upside, of course, is that at least everyone realises that cohesion policy cannot continue with blinkers on as regards the 75% target and hence various scenarios have been proposed and are being debated, scenarios which may provide a way out but which are not a fair solution. It therefore makes sense, it is obvious in my book, to retain the first objective even for the enlarged European Union. In other words, all Member States, old and new, must exceed 75% of the average per capita income of the present 15 Member States. That would be consistent. Naturally enlargement will need more money than it appears to have. So those who need to should take a realistic view of the new situation, they should approach it with an open mind, they should take a long-term view of the cost-benefit ratio of a revised, ambitious regional policy and they should not disappoint regions which continue to require help from Europe, from the Europe of their dreams, the Europe they believe in. We must realise, as did Demosthenes, one of the great figures of ancient Greece, when he said in ancient Greek, '... money, without it nothing we need to do can be done.' And if the decisions have already been taken, well decisions are made to be revised.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, in this group we welcome the Peijs report and we welcome the Commission's stance to which it is responding. It is indeed true that short sea shipping is environmentally friendly and cost-effective, and it is indeed true that it supports the economic development of maritime regions; but we in Scotland call upon the Commission, therefore, to get its act together in respect of the forthcoming liberalisation of sea transport in the west of Scotland. As Mrs Attwooll has just pointed out, we not only have island transport there but also important short sea links across what we call sea lochs and the geologists call fjords, where instead of going 150 kilometres up a narrow road over a mountain pass, you can take a boat across a narrow water. If we were to interpret the regulation on maritime cabotage sensibly, we would say: Of course these peninsulas are functionally equivalent to islands, and public service obligations apply in these cases as well. In that case it would be quite lawful for the state to support the services there. In the same way, one could then take a holistic look at the package of routes across the west of Scotland, instead of breaking it up, inviting cherry-picking by private entrepreneurs who come in to take the few paying routes and make it harder to sustain the routes which are not profitable all the year round. We want a holistic look at that kind of thing throughout Europe, we want an imaginative approach by the Commission. It is six weeks since I put a question to the Commission asking if it would treat the peninsulas as equivalent to islands. Earlier it had claimed intimate knowledge of the west of Scotland. It still have not replied to that. I ask it to reply as a matter of urgency.

Political group: Verts-ALE
The Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development is also right to be concerned at the increasing need for imports of often genetically modified soya cake from the United States, Brazil and Argentina. The EU currently imports almost twice as much cattle feed as it produces itself. The old solution of feeding animal meal and slaughter waste to cows as a source of protein is no longer possible since the advent of mad cow disease, or BSE, but that is the only change that seems to be generally accepted now. We are still not able to raise questions about how we produce our food in general. Is it reasonable to deliberately feed vegetable matter to pigs and then to eat the pigs ourselves, bearing in mind that the meat of these animals has less nutritional value than the original product? Is it reasonable to lift the ban on including fishmeal in processed animal feed as an additional source of protein? The oceans are being fished until they are empty, and the fishermen of the South now respond to all proposals for limiting catches by accusing the North of causing the problem by producing fishmeal. A better part of the proposal is the idea that farmers should grow more leguminous and oil-producing plants as part of a crop rotation system. * - Blokland Report (A5-0269/2002)

Political group: GUE-NGL
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted in favour of the report by Werner Langen on the global shipbuilding industry. We have done so because we believe that it is important that fair competition be established within the global shipbuilding industry, and that the way in which countries such as South Korea subsidise their shipyards is contributing to the destruction of shipbuilding around the world. Unfair competition could help destroy good shipbuilding environments and lead to the loss of know-how and jobs; in the long term it could result in a monopoly situation, which would not be beneficial to world trade. However, we cannot support the specific proposal to extend the scheme of operating subsidies for up to 2 years. We do not fundamentally believe that the problems of the shipbuilding industry can be solved by continuing to compete on the basis of the size of the public purse. However, our lack of support for the extension of the operating subsidies for up to 2 years is politically dependent on there also being fair competition internally within the EU. It is therefore important that the Commission monitors decisions very closely and intervenes if there are still cases of illegal state subsidies to shipyards internally within the EU. (The sitting was closed at 6.10 p.m.)(2)

Political group: PSE
Mr President, a correction to the text has been made after very lengthy negotiations. I will read out this correction and would ask the Socialist MEPs whether it ultimately reflects what they have asked for. If not, I agree that it should be sent back. I will read out what the text of paragraph 13 should be, because there have indeed been a number of difficulties, partly because sections have been deleted from the text. ‘Calls upon the Member States to take into account persecution and/or the fear of persecution which may be suffered by women on account of their sex.’

Political group: PPE-DE