GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
I agree with Mr Pirker, and it is probably the only thing I will agree with him on if we do vote on the Ludford report. It is going to be an interesting vote. It is unreasonable at this stage to postpone it to a time when a lot of people will have left. If you are intending to postpone it to 5.30 p.m., it will totally distort the vote on this report. I urge that we carry on now, understanding all the difficulties that you have mentioned.

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, I would like to thank the Members who voted for my report. In my opinion, Europe has today taken a step forward in its approach to the world of sport. Our task is still far from complete, for sport is continually changing and Europe cannot afford not to follow these changes. I hope that the work which we have begun today, here in the European Parliament, will soon be completed. I would like to make it clear that some of the points I had proposed were not approved, such as the status of sportspersons and the sporting contract etc. I hope that Europe will soon become more mature from this point of view and take into consideration those points which were not included.

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, as everyone is pointing out, the euro has just lost almost 30% of its value in sixteen months, but the European Commission, like the Central Bank, does not seem to be in much of a hurry to learn the lessons of this experience, as that would be liable to challenge the current monetary policy which benefits only stock exchange transactions and speculation. The ambition to achieve full employment and a modern economy, as declared in Lisbon, are indeed laudable objectives, but they are now effectively coming up against the liberal yoke. In its document on the broad economic guidelines, the Commission pursues this liberal approach, and these guidelines now represent the reference text for the coordination of economic policy in the Member States. The Commission, indeed, shows no compunction in issuing orders to this or that State with a view to drawing up its budget. It clearly stresses the target of budgetary streamlining, even going beyond the requirements of the Stability Pact. Following the example of the Central Bank, it demands wage moderation as well as structural reform of the labour market, especially in order to make it more flexible. The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs’ report is in line with this approach and with the continuation of the Lisbon decisions. It advocates accelerating the liberalisation process as well as the process of applying pressure to wages. It proposes increasing the flexibility of the labour market. This is why I am unable to approve of the guidelines contained in this report, especially when made exacerbated by the many amendments introduced by the right wing. The current economic situation, particularly with the decline in the euro, ought to lead the Union and the Member State governments to strive towards the reorientation of European policy, so as to enable it at last to fulfil expectations regarding social issues. We must shake up the dogma of the Stability Pact. We must reverse the current approach, which makes social policy nothing more than a consequence of economic and monetary policy, responsible only for making good the damage caused by the market by means of a policy of aid. This new policy should be particularly based on support to investment that creates jobs by means of a selective policy of credit, the improvement in living and working conditions and a reduction of working hours without flexibility or increased precariousness, taxation on income and financial measures to curb speculation and to release new resources.

Political group: GUE-NGL
draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy. – Mr President, I wish to begin by thanking Mrs Haug for her hard work and her success in relation to small and medium-sized enterprises. That has been a high-order issue for the Committee on Industry, and we are very pleased with the success that she has achieved. However, it is not just a success for the Committee on Industry and for Parliament; it also reflects the priorities of governments in Europe. That is the point that causes me some consternation in relation to the position adopted in this process by the Council. My committee is very interested in the research area. We praised Commissioner Busquin, who has exceeded our expectations in that area. We have heard the Council say on many occasions that it wants to ensure that Europe becomes pre-eminent in research. Then we see the Council make a significant cut in payment appropriations, so that Mrs Haug then has to make some changes. We have heard from the Council today that it is prepared to improve the record by 3.5%. That is the context of the process we are engaged in. I congratulate our rapporteur. However, our committee is somewhat disappointed by the approach of the Council.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, politicians are always extremely adept, when elections are in the offing, at finding ways of putting Parliament’s procedures to work in the service of their own election campaigns. Let me remind Mr Poettering that we will, as part of tomorrow’s discharge debate, be discussing a report by a member of his group, Mr Bayona de Perogordo, which contains a whole passage on Eurostat. I would also like to remind him that all of us in this House do of course expect the Commission to comment on it tomorrow. I do not think it makes any sense to impose on Parliament a procedure that is intended solely to promote harmony within the Group of the European People’s Party after the British Tories failed to get enough signatures for a motion of no confidence in the Commission. Many of the tricks that are used to provide grist to the mills of the election campaigns are too obvious not to be noticed, and, having noticed them, we have to vote against them. (Applause) (Parliament agreed to the request)(2) Wednesday: President. I have received a request from the Group for Council and Commission statements on the situation in the Middle East.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, we already know about some of the issues that will be discussed at the forthcoming WTO negotiations: they are the so-called “left-overs” from Amsterdam. However, at the moment, we are not fully aware of what issues will feature at the start of the forthcoming IGC and these are issues that must be discussed, particularly with a view to achieving efficiency and with a view to an enlargement that it is thought will happen and which is greatly desired. I would like to say here that reforming a Treaty with a view to achieving efficiency strikes me as a very unambitious exercise for the European project, and I fear that this exercise may be nothing but a power game which will allow a small group of countries to set themselves up as a board of directors and to lead and direct the European project. A Europe led by a board of directors would be a negation of the stimulating process of European integration that we have had – it is true that it has its imperfections, but all countries have taken part in it – and, in our opinion, strengthened cooperation must be the exception and not the rule in the European Union. This is because often, the political will to cooperate exists, but the conditions are not right from the economic point of view or from some other point of view, in order to achieve this very will for strengthened cooperation. Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, let me give you an example of this: if there were a change to the weighting of votes within the Council, which would mean that the countries with a higher population as well as the larger countries would in fact have more power, and if the extension of qualified majority voting, extended to the codecision procedure, meant that this tendency in the European Parliament also became more marked, my question is: what role will the European Union’s small or weak countries have in Europe? I prefer cohesion to efficiency, and as Commissioner Barnier raised the issue a while ago of there being 27 of us in Europe, I would like to say, Commissioner, that I think that in the decisions of this Europe of 27, it is more important that all countries feel involved in the decision-making process, than discussing whether, when there are 27 of us, it will take us one hour, less than two hours or three hours to take decisions. Cohesion is more important than efficiency if we are in fact to have a European Union with as cohesive and generous an enterprise as the one that we have seen and in which we have participated.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, it is of course a great tragedy that it should take acts of terrorism of the kind seen in Madrid for Europe’s leaders to pull themselves together. Despite the fact that terrorism has reared its ugly head in several Member States on previous occasions, we have perhaps naively believed for a long time that these major attacks could never happen to us. We are now realising that the fight must take place at global level, but also by means of intensified European cooperation. Therefore, it is good that many important steps were taken at the summit at the weekend, even though they are insufficient. We must create much better preconditions for the coordination of intelligence services and also, in time, create a kind of European FBI that is also operational. Where miscreants and criminals operate across borders, so must the long arm of the law. The most important work in the fight against terrorism, however, is the work on peace and development, and there is much that the EU can do in this regard. A cohesive foreign policy is an important means to this end. It is very important, therefore, that the Convention’s proposals in this field be adopted. I should like to thank the Presidency for the work it is doing in this field.

Political group: ELDR
As is explained in the report, there are a few instances in which criminal sanctions are imposed via Community law. They are the exception rather than the rule, and it is most important that the Community, in responding to paragraph 10 of the report, does not acquire any general competence in criminal matters which should be left to the Member States. Report: Figueiredo (A5-0247/2003)

Political group: PPE-DE
We have no intention of sanctioning the European Anti-Fraud Office. Although this office has been established with the excuse of supervising the officials and elected representatives of the European institutions, the way this office has been designated and the lack of any indications as to how the Office itself will be monitored do not inspire the slightest confidence in us. We are in favour not only of total transparency regarding the operation of all European institutions, but also of the election and the admissibility, at any time, not only of all those elected today, but also all those who have any responsibility at whatever level, from the top of the scale to the bottom, including the Commission in Brussels. Given the non-democratic nature of the European Union’s decision-making bodies, the establishment of OLAF appears to be a derisory measure intended to provide a semblance of supervision even though there is no real, democratic supervision.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, the previous speaker, Mr van Hulten, has given an excellent explanation of the background to the refusal to grant the Committee of the Regions discharge in April, and I think that Mrs Avilés Perea also does that in her resolution; she has done a very good job. As a result of the refusal to grant discharge, two bodies carried out investigations: the European Court of Auditors and OLAF. I have to say that I was somewhat disappointed by the investigation by the Court of Auditors. An investigation that can be expressed in a couple of sentences is not what I would call ‘thorough’; it was rather too superficial an investigation for my taste. I have greater respect for the report by OLAF, which has examined the matter in greater detail. There have been a great many abuses; the great hope is that these will now disappear. In this regard, I agree with the previous speakers who said that the role of the Financial Controller is essential. It was a bad omen that, when the Financial Controller brought the abuses to light, one of the first things that the Administration of the Committee of the Regions did was to dismiss a member of his staff. I am very pleased, therefore, that this Parliament has adopted an amendment to the 2004 budget by the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party to give that Financial Controller, right now, two extra members of staff for the coming financial year. We consider the role of the Financial Controller essential in all the European institutions. It cannot be emphasised enough that this person must act completely independently – independently of the hierarchy – in order to express his or her opinion. We shall be supporting the critical tone of Mrs Avilés Perea’s resolution, because we think that she has done a good job. However, my group will not be voting in favour of granting discharge to the Committee of the Regions. We think that we are justified in this course of action in a year in which so much has been amiss.

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, I would firstly like to thank Mrs Miguélez for the excellent work she has done. Its quality is all the more notable insofar as it deals with an issue which is hugely traumatic for a large number of people who depend on fishing in Portugal and in Galicia, Andalucia and the Canary Islands in Spain. It is a question of finding the best possible way to alleviate the effects of what I believe to be, if you pardon the expression, the chronicle of a death foretold. For a long time my group has been warning the House of the risks of not linking the fisheries agreement with Morocco to the association agreement. Today all I can say is that the Kingdom of Morocco has not shown the willingness to negotiate that we expect from a trading partner. I would like to acknowledge the Commission’s efforts to lessen the impact of the lack of an agreement with Morocco, but I am not going to repeat what has already been said. It is sufficient to refer to the interventions of the rapporteur and Mrs Fraga, for example, to realise that the Committee on Fisheries has considerably improved on the Commission’s proposal, by making it fairer. In this respect, it only remains for me to ask, as my group will do, the House to approve the report of the Committee on Fisheries, written by Mrs Miguélez, tomorrow, and that, once approved by Parliament, the report may quickly be provided with the appropriate financial instruments so that it can be implemented. And, in this respect, I would like to make it clear that the budgetary flexibility instrument is essential. Ladies and gentlemen, it would be horrendous, to give an example, if an Objective 1 region, with the highest unemployment rate in the European Union, which also suffers the consequences of the competition created by the very favourable agreements which we, Europeans, have granted to Morocco in the fruit products sector, not only suffered the effects of a tough conversion as a result of the lack of an agreement with Morocco, but that, furthermore, as a result of the budgetary miserliness of certain people, it also ended up without Structural Funds.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Research and development are of crucial importance if Europe is to become a continent characterised by economic growth and sound welfare. International competition, especially from the United States, increases the need for new and intensified research efforts. In its proposal in connection with the Sixth Framework Programme, the Commission has identified several important problems and research areas which Europe needs to concentrate on. Obviously, it is important that Europe’s researchers cooperate and that research efforts are coordinated to some degree. It is also very important that we should not only make it easier for researchers to travel but also facilitate the distribution of research results. What worries us is that the framework programme involves a very considerable centralisation of research. Major resources are being invested in a small number of selected areas. Research is thus being directed in an unfortunate way because the Member States’ own research routes will be governed by the Commission’s priorities. For small countries with limited research budgets, the EU is thus in danger of becoming one of the main bodies that funds research, something which would give rise to an unfortunate degree of centralisation. As liberals, we applaud the principle of independent research. From the point of view of efficiency, independent research has shown itself to be far superior to politically directed research. In the long run, societies which provide researchers with large room for manoeuvre when it comes to choosing subjects and methods achieve better results than societies in which the politicians determine the direction to be taken by research. The principle of the independent pursuit of knowledge has, for centuries, strongly characterised research in Europe. Universities and other institutions of higher learning have an important role to play in cooperating with industry and the public sector, but their most important task must not become that of taking orders from the latter. We believe that the Sixth Framework Programme would give rise to undue centralisation of independent research. We have therefore chosen to abstain from voting on the Caudron report.

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, for me – not a member of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development – it is quite extraordinary that the effect of these proposals on developing country producers and markets has barely received any attention in this debate. Therefore, my contribution may seem somewhat esoteric in the context of what I have been hearing this afternoon. How can this major issue, which is a key issue for Cancun, and its implications for developing countries have been so marginalised here in the debate? As a member of the Committee on Development and Cooperation and of the Joint Parliamentary Assembly, I can confirm, of course, that European agricultural policies are currently in direct contradiction with the EU's declared rural development policies for developing countries. The debate, therefore, should and must reflect the need to assess the impact of these reforms on the EU's declared poverty eradication objectives and our sustainable development objectives for the world's poorest countries. Farm subsidies cost those poor countries about USD 50 billion a year in lost agricultural exports. Today we had the G8's very weak statement on trade and reform. We expected at least a moratorium on export subsidies and an end to those domestic supports which to me and to many others are simply hidden subsidies. Let us not only assess what is perceived to be best for European farmers and producers, let us at last and at least look as if we are prepared in our deliberations to consider the people on much poorer continents than our own. I urge the Committee on Agriculture and others who quite rightly care about European citizens and farmers to take a much broader view of the context of agriculture in the world.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I shall, of course, begin by congratulating our rapporteur, Baroness Ludford, on the excellent report she has contributed to this debate. This annual debate on the area of freedom, security and justice provides Parliament with a new opportunity to express its dissatisfaction and frustration with regard to the paralysis affecting the third pillar as a result of the lack of political will on the part of the Member States, and despite the ongoing efforts of the Commission. Important Commission initiatives, both before and after 11 September 2001, remain deadlocked in Council or are still waiting to be transposed or ratified by the Member States. The States appear to wish to compensate for their inability to establish policies that will provide a structure for the area of freedom, security and justice by putting forward a torrent of proposals based on their right of initiative. As a rule, these proposals make a minuscule, if not counterproductive, contribution to the objectives that these States themselves have imposed on successive European summits. We are seeing a procession of outlandish proposals, by which I mean proposals that are not part of any plan or form part of the Commission scoreboard. These are arbitrary proposals of limited or no scope, incoherent, sometimes dictated by national political agendas, proposals that tend to turn the third pillar into a universe in chaos, continuously expanding in all directions - a legal and bureaucratic novel without full stops. The European Parliament has the duty to condemn this impasse, which is the result of the political inability to date of the Council and the Member States to have brought into force a single measure on the package on combating terrorism that has been drawn up by the Commission or come originally from it and planned in its scoreboard. The gulf between the discourse of political leaders, in particular, of government representatives, and this resulting in practical actions is reaching scandalous proportions in the field of fighting transnational crime. Furthermore, in the areas covered by Title IV, we are still seeing a persistent imbalance, rightly condemned by the rapporteur, between the relative ease with which agreements are concluded on the repressive elements of controlling immigration and the ongoing inability to establish common policies in the field of asylum and regulating legal immigration, specifically in the field of civil rights and social integration.

Political group: PSE
Madam President, I would like to say something in relation to the Minutes. Yesterday, the Conference of Presidents and the political groups jointly registered an objection to the establishment of the so-called ‘Technical Group of Independent Members’ and I believe that the said objection should be explicitly recorded in the Minutes. I assume that the chairman of the PPE, who currently holds the presidency of the Conference, will have forwarded that letter to the Presidency of the Parliament. In any event, I would like to place my group's objection on record. Furthermore, since I have the floor, Madam President, I would like to add that it is not appropriate to open a debate, based on rumours, on a subject which we will have to consider in turn on the agenda, for which I believe amendments have been tabled, and on which the political groups are still to give their opinion. It seems to me that we should debate each issue in its turn.

Political group: PSE