GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, at this time in the afternoon, after all the previous speeches, one feels that the vast majority of the points that can be covered have already been made. Therefore, as a member of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, I would like to focus on and limit my speech to a few matters that were considered and decided upon at the Barcelona Summit, which many feel explain the success of the Summit and justify why it has been said that it went reasonably well. As we can now see the end of the economic slowdown, there is a clear and determined commitment to get back to the Lisbon Strategy and to achieve the crucial objective that it set: full employment. At times Europeans find it hard to believe, or, to look at it in another way, they tend to think, that Europe is always concerned with looking at what will have to be done in the future and that it is actually doing very little. I would like to specifically highlight the decisions and agreements made at the Barcelona Summit, which, if properly presented, will enable those citizens who are currently not exactly enthusiastic to change their views. There is, of course, the commitment to achieve full employment with more and better jobs and, what is more, before the end of this decade. There is also the commitment to tax reduction for the lowest salaries and to accentuate measures to motivate people to seek employment, to control unemployment and of course to encourage the incorporation of women into the labour market through various measures, many of which had already been highlighted here. In addition there is the strategy for flexible extension of the length of the working life in view of the changes in our demography, the improvement in the transfer of social rights and employment mobility in general. These are all feelings and ideas, and therefore decisions, through which as European citizens we can take hold of and perceive Europe more and, what is more, we are going to take hold of it by strengthening the role of social partners, which makes us all jointly responsible in this magnificent task of constructing Europe, a Europe that is much more supportive and therefore fairer.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, sometimes it is an advantage to be spokesman for the third group in Parliament because it has provided me with time to read the Commission's paper. I can, therefore, say with some authority that I strongly welcome it. It is a strong assertion of the Commission's orthodox function and it should shift the debate about where a power lies, centre stage inside the Convention. It represents a challenge to those Prime Ministers who prefer to opine on the fringes of the Convention but who seem far too frightened to contribute official proposals. As most of the items in the Commission's programme appear also in my draft for a federal Union it is clear that I shan't be your fiercest critic and, while I commend the firm rejection of an idea of a Super-President of the Council, I do have concerns and reservations about the proposal for an executive Presidency of the Council. I wonder if this would not lead to more of the inconsistency and the conflict with the Commission that we have at present. Surely it would be an improvement to follow the logic of what you propose for foreign and security policy, which is the virtual cloning of Mr Solana and Mr Patten, and to follow that practice in the other two areas where the Council enjoys executive authority. Why not let the Commissioner responsible chair the Council in its formations for economic policy and interior affairs? Nevertheless, despite some reserves the Parliamentary delegation in the Convention will follow the principal lines of this proposal and I look forward to future close collaboration inside the Convention with Mr Barnier and Mr Vitorino. (Applause)

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, I would like to thank the Commissioner for his input in this debate and for his sound plans. I very much back the idea of strengthening economic, cultural and political ties with ASEAN and ASEM. I also believe in involving the NGOs, mainstream society and the citizens of those countries. However, I would like to focus on the political contacts and comment on two countries in that area, namely Burma and Indonesia. Burma is without a doubt ruled by one of the world’s cruellest dictatorships. Ten years ago, a military regime pushed the elected President, Mrs Aung San Suu Kyi, out of office, dissolved parliament, drove out, imprisoned and even killed numerous members of parliament, and subsequently applied extreme terror in its treatment of the population and minorities. The European Union has taken a number of measures with regard to Burma, but to no avail. Not so long ago, Mrs Aung San Suu Kyi was once again restricted in her freedom, a number of key fellow party members were rounded up and Western human rights representatives found themselves in hot water in Burma. Nothing appears to be working. This is why, in line with previous EP resolutions, I should once again like to argue in favour of adopting a harder line in conjunction with the ASEAN and ASEM countries. I would now like to turn my attention to Indonesia, which is having difficulty moving back towards being a democratic constitutional state. Wahid’s government is of good will and is genuinely trying to undo old-style practices in the short term. But there are hardened opponents. These include corrupt members of the old Suharto clique and disloyal sections of the army, as well as paramilitary militia and aggressive Muslim fundamentalists. Meanwhile, Indonesia is dealing with a total of one million refugees internally, 130 000 of whom are in Timor and 300 000 on the Moluccan Islands. Especially in the Moluccas, where aggressive Muslim groups are spreading death and destruction, the situation is plainly disastrous. With more than 5 000 killed, tens of thousands wounded and more than 300 000 refugees, the large Moluccan community in the Netherlands – 50 000 EU citizens – is worried out of its mind. The European Union must support the democratic forces in Indonesia but at the same time fathom out how it can help Indonesia to defy the negative forces in Indonesia – certainly in the Moluccas, because so many Moluccan European citizens are so terribly worried.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the European Parliament has been consistent in approving various initiatives to widen Europol's mandate. In addition to drug trafficking and its initial powers, we have given it additional powers relating to trafficking in human beings, terrorism, money laundering, forging money and means of payment, as well as all kinds of serious international crime. We want to help transform Europol into a more efficient organisation for fighting against organised crime. The initiative before us today is intended to go further still, to revise the Europol Convention itself, which as it stands limits Europol's functions to collecting, analysing and exchanging data. We welcome the idea of giving Europol operational powers in line with our interpretation of the Treaty of Amsterdam. But we also wish to stress the need for this to go hand in hand with measures ensuring democratic scrutiny or judicial control. The procedure adopted for revising the convention is, however, of a strictly intergovernmental nature. We therefore support the proposal put forward by the rapporteur, Mr Deprez, that this initiative should be withdrawn and that a new proposal should be presented with a view to replacing the convention by means of a Council decision under Article 34, which would make it possible to integrate Europol into the third pillar and accordingly into the institutional framework of the European Union, as has been repeatedly requested by the European Parliament. What we wish to see in these parts of the area of freedom, security and justice are firm, specific and carefully considered measures. We reject initiatives which suggest that something is being done but which lack any real substance. That is why I support the Sousa Pinto report and am proposing that the Spanish initiative for the establishment of a European Institute of Police Studies, which would overlap with the structure already in place and in particular the European Police College, should be rejected. We also support Mr Deprez's report on increasing the basic salaries of Europol staff: if the European Parliament is not consulted on Europol's general budget, it does not make sense for it to be consulted on a matter of detail. I agree with the rapporteur on the importance of incorporating Europol's budget into the Community budget.

Political group: PPE-DE
The European Parliament's retraction on the proposals for the Members' Statute blew out the possibility of a solution to the problem during the Italian Presidency. Today's resolution endeavours to restore once again the possibility of resolving the problem, which is why I voted in favour of it. The European Parliament is exposed to public opinion; it cannot act as public prosecutor to the other Community institutions when its own house is not in order. With the system of travel expenses in particular, every effort must be made to improve this before the European elections.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, this is a useful and very necessary procedure. One problem that I have about it is that there is a natural tendency to concentrate much more on the 4% of the budget that might have been lost, or the 2% that probably was lost, than the 98% of the budget that was properly spent. It is necessary to acknowledge that 98% was properly spent. It is also important to try to correct the situation where things have gone wrong, but in so doing not to exaggerate it in such a way as to create in the European public's mind an image of a European Union that is out of control, that is a sea of corruption and cannot be trusted with taxpayers' money. There is fraud at every level of government at which I have served – local, national and European and regional. It is always there, but local and national bodies can stand up to criticism better perhaps than this younger institution of the European Union, which is less accepted. While it is important to put things right and to give people confidence, nevertheless it does not help their confidence if we exaggerate the extent to which abuses occur and money is lost. I thank Mrs Stauner for her report. Some people have criticised it for being a bit too severe. Mrs Stauner is new to the Budget Control Committee, but her statement is a real reflection of the mood and the debate that went on. I do not agree with all of it, of course, but nevertheless it was agreed by a majority. I would not entirely accept the explanatory statement. It is Mrs Stauner's own explanation but it is the motion for resolution that we the Parliament have to decide on. Another point that I would like to make is that in seeking to bring everybody into accountability, whether they be officials or Members of the Commission, we ought, like Mr Deprez said, to avoid this vendetta between institutions. We ought avoid particularly vendettas between an institution and individual commissioners. We should see this Commission as a college and while the individual commissioners must be held accountable, nevertheless we must take an objective view of what is going on and beware of either European party politics or international politics colouring our judgement. The last point I will make is that we have not only an obligation to ensure that accounts are better kept and money is better accounted for. We also have an obligation to ensure that when we make regulations they are regulations which can be put into effect. Over the years, I witnessed the making of all the regulations that are creating the problems and my experience in this Parliament was that we wanted to pander to public sentiment. We never sought to ensure that our regulations were enforceable.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, Commissioner, it all sounds very hunky-dory, but a lot of it is cosmetic. Why not go in for a proper reform and do away with endless quota regulations, ceilings, minimum and maximum livestock densities, slaughter premiums and fattening bonuses? Why not just pay the farmers and say: you decide, do you want to slaughter the calves now, irrespective of how fat or thin they are, or do you want to get out of production completely? Would that not be a more reasonable course of action? And then I ask you: are you going to operate the guillotine – will you make it a rule that holdings with more than 90 animals will not get any subsidies?

Political group: PSE
Mr President, Commissioner, as a member of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism I am glad finally to have an opportunity to speak about tourism. In my view, there are three specific issues. The first is the environmental impact. A very large number of Members of this House come from areas where tourism is important as an economic sector and where tourism has a major impact on people and the environment. I should therefore like to ask the Commission how it intends to manage this impact of tourism on people and the environment. Further, what is the Commission doing about the conservation of tourism in the context of Agenda 21? I also think of the importance of Article 6 of the Treaty, which obliges the Commission to integrate environmental protection in its policy sectors, thus including the tourist sector, with a view to the promotion of sustainable development. A second aspect is the link with regional policy. There is certainly a link with regional development and tourism. But it must not be the case that a region’s own trump cards, that is its nature and cultural heritage, are destroyed. The Structural Funds must be expressed far more clearly in this regard. The third link is transport policy. There has of course been enormous growth in passenger traffic. We see growth not only in air traffic, but also in car traffic. Here we need a specific approach in my view in favour of environmentally friendly and safe transport. The current disappearance of the international overnight trains proves that we are falling short in this area. There is also no European regulation on taking bicycles on the train. I hope that the Commission is prepared to invest in good practices, networking and knowledge development around the problems of mobility and tourism.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, if we had known that this afternoon speaking time was duty-free we would have all taken the opportunity not only to speak for longer but to express ourselves in a more detailed and precise way, worthy of the subject. In my group we are against the inequalities between the North and the South. We are also against the inequalities between the time that one group or speaker has and the amount of time which others have been given. For the future I urge the presidency to confer with the groups if another heaven-sent opportunity like this appears, so that everyone has an opportunity to profit from the generosity of the presidency.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, macro-economic assistance for the three countries which lie outside the war zone but which have suffered in the extreme during the war in Kosovo is only right and very important. Each of you will be thinking, are there still questions about this issue? Support for lasting, successful development in the countries concerned is, however, urgently necessary. Here, I wish to clearly state again on behalf of my group, that we want to do everything to ensure that Bulgaria and Romania are not left behind in the process of enlarging the European Union. These countries, and also the neighbouring country of Macedonia, urgently need our political and economic support. In this connection, I should again like to remind you that this Parliament has decided here on several occasions that the visa requirement for entering and leaving Romania and Bulgaria, which constitutes a form of exclusion, should finally be removed. The Council and the Commission should urgently state their position on this issue at the Helsinki Summit. On the question of financial assistance, the Commission and the Council always extol their splendid charitable initiatives in referring to the huge sums given by way of macro-economic aid. Have you ever asked, though, how effective this macro-economic assistance is in regard to economically and socially-balanced development in these crisis-racked countries? What basically is the money for? Whose pockets is it really going into? The truth is that not a single euro benefits the people in the region, neither small and medium-sized businesses nor the education and health systems. Nor is the money used to create employment. It does not contribute either to the local and regional infrastructure, the reconstruction of which is an important prerequisite for investment. No, it amounts to nothing more than bribes for international banking systems. It offsets the indebtedness into which the IMF has brought these countries. It flows practically direct into the coffers of the international banks and in that way contributes to the further indebtedness of the so-called recipient countries. It is also only a credit, even if the conditions are better than those of the EMF. Nonetheless, the conditions are: save on health care and on social insurance and pensions systems. The result: the further impoverishment of broad strata of the populations of the countries concerned. Is that what we mean by stability? Can stability in the region be based upon further indebtedness and further impoverishment? In practice, the macro-economic assistance only contributes to account being taken of the budgetary conditions of the EMF. The indebtedness is therefore compounded. In other words, we need a change of direction in the structure, and we need politics to again assume priority in this domain and responsibility for economic and socially-balanced development which is genuinely stable.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, I hope we do not have to come here again to talk about our employment conditions. When I looked at the UK press over the weekend I could not recognise myself or indeed any of my colleagues in the lurid descriptions of our supposed lifestyles and endless perks. Many journalists have telephoned me with the opening line 'Oh, so you are about to vote yourself a 25% pay rise.' When I explain the whys and wherefores, they suddenly lose interest, it is not an interesting story any more. Surely this is the point. Our conditions of employment and our expenses should not be the story, they should be transparent, a matter of public record: proper recompense for a job well done and reimbursement for monies paid out in doing that. Colleagues, I believe this is our last chance to reach the stage where we are no longer the story, but our work is. We have a package before us that in most ways represents a compromise for all of us. It is a package that should get through the Council if we are reasonable regarding items of primary law, but the Council too must compromise over tax. Some Members of this House may be uncomfortable about the level of salary: for some it is too much, for some too little, but finally we seem to have a figure that we can all just about live with. Then the expenses: again at last we seem, thanks to your work, Mr President, to have a proposed system that is much more transparent than hitherto. For some it may not go far enough, but it is a vast improvement. There will have to be some compromise and understanding on all sides. What we will have finally established, the big prize, is a single statute for MEPs. This is our last chance. It was hard enough to get here, and the circumstances will not arise again. We have a chance for interest in this House to focus on our work and not our pockets. I hope sufficient numbers of us will have the courage to bend a little and vote for this package and the amendments by the and other groups. Quite frankly, colleagues, although I pay absolute tribute to the work of our rapporteur, I do not want to listen to him in committee meetings on this subject for another five years. His very considerable talents and our time could be much better employed on other legislative work which directly benefits all Europe's citizens. (Applause)

Political group: ELDR
I should like to thank the President-in-Office, both because the question was raised and for his reply. I hope that this is in fact the case. I should like to use the opportunity which I have to ask a second supplementary question and the occasion of the presence here of the husband and son of Leila Zana, who was awarded the European Parliament’s Sakharov prize, to ask the minister the following question: does he not think that before assuming the Portuguese Presidency, he should have raised the matter of the release of a lady member of parliament honoured by our very own House with the Sakharov prize for her fight for human rights now that Turkey wishes to draw closer to, and integrate into, the European Union? Should the Council and the presidency not have made a move to help Leila Zana?

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, this measure is of great significance in those countries – the United Kingdom, Ireland and Sweden – which are now bringing their rules on the movement of pet animals into line with practices elsewhere in the Community. Like the rapporteur, I believe it is a pity that we could not reach agreement before the conciliation stage, but I understand the differences. Some of those differences will be reflected in this debate, and I still have some minor differences with the rapporteur, which she has already acknowledged. For those countries which have prevented the entry of animals that may be at risk of rabies without a long period of quarantine, this is, in a way, an act of faith. It is made possible by the fact that we now have effective vaccination methods which can be indicated by the transponder chip. We have recently had representations from some members of the veterinary profession arguing for an extension of the tattooing principle and claiming that the transponder chip can be surgically removed or otherwise nullified. I cannot accept those arguments. There is broad agreement between the Commission and all Members of this House that we should move toward alignment. I share the rapporteur's concern that the movement of young animals, which must present at least some element of risk, should be subject to the same constraints as that of other categories. I have not been able to follow the arguments against that, other than that it may, somewhere along the line, affect the trade in animals. But, as the Commissioner well knows, trade in animals, if it is not effectively handled, has led to the perpetuation of some serious abuses in the Community in recent years. I do not believe this is a persuasive argument. I agree, however, with the Commission and not the rapporteur on Amendments Nos 7, 8, and 9. It is counterproductive to introduce amendments which will effectively constrain the movement of animals between some existing Member States, as well as extending the scheme – as the United Kingdom and other countries with the current constraints would like – to countries that are not rabies-free. For the United States and Canada, for example, we see no reason why there should be the further impediments set out in Amendments Nos 7, 8 and 9. We agree with the rapporteur, however, on the question of comitology. I welcome the Commissioner's assurance that a suitable amendment allowing for reference to Parliament at any process of review will be introduced. In conclusion, although this is a small measure to many and will not mean much to those countries where animals routinely cross internal EU borders, for those who cherish pets as lifelong companions it is a measure that will be greatly welcomed.

Political group: PSE