GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Madam President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, the morning after the G8 meeting my group, which was very much present in Genoa, immediately called for this debate to be entered on the agenda of this new session of Parliament. The conservative majority in this Parliament, which is feeling very defensive, prevented this debate from concluding with a resolution in which Parliament expressed its opinion. It will not, however, manage to prevent us from raising the serious questions arising from the events at Genoa again and again on our political agenda, in one form or another, throughout the coming period: the aftermath of Genoa is only just beginning. One of the issues raised by Genoa is the very legitimacy of G7, or G8, perceived as a kind of board of directors of the big powers of this world. I will not go into that today. Another issue raised by Genoa is, of course, this whole problem of violence, in particular the unheard-of repression of peaceful demonstrators, who were pursued even to the headquarters of the Social Forum of Genoa. Yesterday we took the initiative, in association with the Green Group, the Attac association and MEPs, of organising a major debate on the subject with the coordinator of the Genoa Social Forum, Mr Agnoletto. The extremely grave incidents that were discussed and described during that debate made us even more convinced of the need to shed full light on the course of events that led to the dramatic incidents and acts of violence we saw and on the entire chain of responsibility for respecting the rules and values in which the European Union believes. For the rest, I proposed that we set up a monitoring committee right here to work in liaison with Italian members of parliament, the Social Forum in Genoa and other partners who wish to help discover the whole truth of the matter. In the same spirit, we have reiterated our support for players in the social movement who do not want to see their message be perverted by acts of violence of the Black Block type, which our enemies find easy to manipulate. We will not allow this magnificent commitment on the part of our citizens to be discredited, let alone criminalised, in this way. That brings me to the third, and perhaps in our view the principal issue of the aftermath of Genoa, namely the political responses we will or will not be able to make to the questions asked by these men, these women, these innumerable young people who are quite wrongly labelled anti-globalist, whereas most of the time what they seek is a democratic globalisation based on solidarity. At a time when the European Union is debating its future, its ambitions on the world stage and its relations with civil society, we for our part do not see these questions as a threat to be averted, but far more as a chance we must seize if we want Europe to move forward.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Madam President, yesterday, as we all know, there was a minor incident here during the debate on the situation of Turkish prisoners. In this connection it was stated, by the Vice-President in the Chair amongst others, that the Committee on Budgets was blocking the posts which were necessary to strengthen the security service. As the rapporteur responsible, I should like to state here that the posts requested were entered in the reserve with the agreement of the Bureau and that the Bureau has not yet made any request for these proposed posts to be taken out of the reserve. I firmly refute, therefore, the accusation that the Budgets Committee is blocking the posts necessary to improve security in Parliament. In so doing I would point out that the Bureau is required to request the relevant transfer of appropriations. (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, I congratulate Mrs Miguélez Ramos on her report. She has highlighted some vitally important issues, not least the discrepancy between what we pay to Greenland every year – EUR 42.8 million – and what we get in return – fishing rights worth EUR 28 million. I am glad that Commissioner Fischler has pointed out that the protocol signed yesterday goes some way towards adjusting this matter that the auditors have criticised in the past. It is worth remembering, as Mr Casaca said, that these were the terms of an agreement drawn up at the time Greenland left the European Community. A substantial part of this compensation package is to support the Greenland economy and the desperately poor Inuit population of Greenland. I know this is a fact that Mrs Langenhagen is an expert on and has asked Parliament to deal with sympathetically in the past. However, I support the rapporteur when she insists that those non-fisheries-related aspects of relations between the EU and Greenland have to be financed under heading 4 of the financial perspective or through the European Development Fund. The fisheries budget must only be used for fisheries purposes. On the other hand, I wish to sound a note of caution on that aspect of the report which calls for a share-out of under-utilised fishing rights. Commissioner Fischler drew attention to this in his statement, and the protocol signed yesterday appears now to be able to allocate these under-used fishing rights to other Member States. I would urge the Commissioner in this respect to remember the beleaguered whitefish fleet around the North Sea, particularly that of the UK, which is now tied up for half of every month with the quotas slashed by 50%. If there is to be a handout of under-utilised rights or joint-venture partnerships, please ensure that the whitefish fleet in the North Sea comes at the top of the queue.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, both personally and on behalf of my group, I would first like to thank the rapporteur very warmly for her report. Because this is a complicated and important topic it inevitably took some time to prepare, but we managed to find a workable compromise acceptable to the majority of this House. Not everyone will be happy, but that is in the nature of compromises. Nevertheless, it is a good result. In view of the limited time I have, I wish to address just one very important aspect of our deliberations, and that is the issue of jurisdiction. The Commission originally proposed that in parallel, as it were, to the existing national structures, there should also be a system of purely European jurisdiction. I have always said, and I would like to stress this once again now, that I regard this approach as totally wrong. We should not make the mistake that the United States has already made with its court system, so that on top of state courts there are also federal courts, with the guiding principle being that federal courts rule on federal law and state courts on state law. That is nonsensical, it cannot be explained to taxpayers, it costs a lot of money and leads to a divide in the administration of justice. We very much believe that European courts are also national courts, and that national courts obviously have to apply not only national law but also European law. The approach adopted in this report by Anna Palacio Vallelersundi therefore represents a great step forward. That approach is that powers at national level can continue to be exercised with regard to European law in future, and that the court of first instance will be the existing national courts. In order to provide uniform administration of justice and avoid a lack of uniformity in Europe, the court of second instance will be a higher, European court. I regard that as a good proposal. Mr President, please excuse me for having to leave this sitting very shortly, but I have another commitment and have to take part in another meeting. Please excuse me and thank you for your attention.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I take the floor to speak about the report on Romania. When having talks in recent weeks with the rapporteur and other Members, I tried to improve this report, but I must say that this attempt did not succeed, and this is why I have tabled some amendments on which we will vote in the House tomorrow. It seems to me that this report is not very balanced, that it is inaccurate and inconsistent with what our Parliament has maintained to date. Given the shortage of time, I will just concentrate on two aspects. Firstly: the issue of children in institutions and the issue of adoption. The serious nature of this issue should lead us to make serious and balanced assessments of the efforts made, of the improvements achieved and of what remains to be done. Above all, claims that have not been proven should be excluded, if we do not want to offend a friendly country and if we do not want our Parliament’s credibility to be lost. Rigour is of course needed, but not prejudice. Secondly, I do not agree with those who – in the name of totally understandable demand to reorientate the Romanian Government’s policy on some sensitive issues linked to European integration – fundamentally reject the results achieved to date. I should not like to think that these hurried and ungenerous judgments were influenced by the cost of enlargement to include countries of the Carpathia and the Balkans. If this were the case and if there were political short-sightedness of this kind, then I would like to mention – as Mr Daul did this morning in the House – the 50 million who died during the world wars of the last century. I believe that the only way to avoid the future risks that the recent war in Yugoslavia too has shown to be potential and real is to make progress in terms of integration. Rigour is of course needed, but so too is understanding of the efforts made and the results achieved. It will be much easier for a state to become fully legitimate within the EU than outside it. I believe that 2007 must remain the target for Romania and Bulgaria. This is not a certainty but an objective, even if – as Commissioner Verheugen said – the keys to this success lie above all with Sofia and Bucharest.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, I wanted, first of all, on a brief point of order, to comment on the application of Rule 112, reminding Parliament that this is a procedure which is to be applied strictly in exceptional circumstances. Quite frankly, I am amazed that the Council should invoke Rule 112 for a matter of this nature, which we would have been able to address in a few week’s time anyway without it making any difference to the measure, which, as you are aware, has already been in force since 1 January. In this regard, I would point out to the House that, irrespective of the position it expresses, last night, at an extraordinary meeting held at the request of the Council, the competent committee did not reach the quorum necessary to vote. The coordinators present were, in fact, surprised at the application of Rule 112 precisely because – as I said before, Mr President – it is, in my opinion, an instrument which is to be used in exceptional circumstances. We are therefore stunned that the urgent procedure has been employed for what is, I reiterate, a measure whose content is of very minor import.

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, allow me to start by echoing the congratulations by my fellow MEPs for the excellent report that Mr Brok has presented again this year. However, I have to add that I am very interested to find out how the report would fare next year, for just when the common foreign and security policy is being further detailed, it is meeting with enormous new challenges. The events of 11 September and subsequent events greatly impact on that policy. They will put it to the test. It is too early to gain a complete overview of the new security framework and the new threat. However, we would like to ask the Council and Commission to produce an initial evaluation as soon as possible. This evaluation should also touch upon the question to what extent the pillar structure forms an obstruction to effective action in the new situation. External policy has become internal policy, and vice versa. The European Union is not sufficiently prepared for this at this time. Conflict prevention and crisis management have taken on a different aspect. Our approach is often still too regional and too geographic. Horizontal issues must now be thrown into the spotlight. Increasing use must be made of regional policy in an integrated manner to tackle terrorism and international organised crime which are interrelated in many ways. The guiding principle in this should be to help each other. Take countries such as Ukraine. They form part of the problem which we are now facing because the lack of transparency in countries such as those, forms the ideal breeding ground for all kinds of crimes, to put it mildly. We have too little control over this because we have not sufficiently developed this kind of cooperation. Maybe we have focused our attention too much on the Balkans. That region, too, is a source of security problems, but anyone who studies the ‘map of evil’ will realise that the new secondary routes of drugs, arms, illegal immigrants, etc. traverse the Slav Commonwealth. I am pleased that rapporteur Brok insists on a more effective implementation of EU strategies. There is more cause for this than ever before.

Political group: PSE
Catalonia and the Kingdom of Spain have been experiencing a real political storm in the last few days. The reason I am discussing it is that it has affected our institution. Indeed, our President, Mr Cox, deferred the meeting that he was supposed to have only yesterday with the new President of the Catalonian Parliament, Mr Ernest Benach. The reason for all this is that on Monday, the Madrid daily newspaper ABC revealed that my Secretary General, Josep Lluís Carod-Rovira, who had just taken up the role of Prime Minister of Catalonia, had secretly – but not so secretly that ABC was unable to reveal it – met with leaders of the terrorist organisation ETA. With his characteristic courage and sense of honour, Mr Carod acknowledged the meeting, stating that it took place at the request of ETA, from which he hoped to procure a truce announcement. Since Monday, the anathemas have been pouring out from Madrid in an election-driven battle of indignation. Mr Carod has stepped down as Prime Minister, courageously heading up the list of candidates in Barcelona for the elections to the Cortès to take place on 14 March. Like a good democrat, he is letting the citizens judge his actions. In my view, there is no doubt about the verdict, which is the only one that counts, and I condemn the fact that the President of our institution refused to meet or deferred his meeting with the President of the Catalonian Parliament.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, following on from what Mr Fatuzzo said, it is worth remarking that the concept of 'region' is radically ambiguous. For example, when it comes to constitutional affairs the ancient nation of Scotland currently counts as a region of Europe. However, when it comes to the funds which we are discussing, Scotland itself has several extremely diverse regions. For example, the Highlands and Islands include some of the most isolated islands in Europe with extreme problems of transport because of weather and tidal conditions and the costs involved. The Highlands is one of the most underpopulated mountain regions in Europe. That contrasts with the Central region of Scotland and again with the Borders region, which is sparsely populated and has its own particular problems. I am delighted that what we did today in these two reports was to reject proposals for radical renationalisation of Structural Funds. The United Kingdom Government has been leading the charge on that. I was glad to see that the European Socialists, including the UK Labour Party, today apparently deserted Mr Brown's proposals about renationalisation. We came to good conclusions about the need to sustain structural funding at European level and to take seriously the problems of territorial cohesion and permanent geographical disadvantage.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, I welcome the presence of the President-in-Office of the Council and the President of the Commission. The war against Iraq is completely without justification and must therefore be condemned. Mr President-in-Office of the Council, that is something on which the Council remains silent. In the war against Iraq, cluster bombs and landmines are to be used, in contravention of international law. The Council remains silent about that, Mr President. The war is being waged against the civilian population, millions of innocent people becoming immediate or secondary victims, the latter as a result of the collapse of food and water supplies. Anyone who has been in Iraq will know what the situation there is like. The war is unleashing a humanitarian catastrophe, but the Council has nothing to say about that either, and so, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I call upon you to be silent no longer. I urge you to support the initiative by Russia and the Arab League for an emergency session of the Security Council, to gather together those Member States of the European Union that have opposed the war, and to set in motion action that will rescue the United Nations from its role of spectator and again give it a part to play in this conflict. Be silent no longer, Mr President-in-Office of the Council! Just as we do, you represent the majority of Europe's citizens, and you can be sure of their support. I urge you to take responsibility and stop this war.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, the social partnership should be a forward-looking partnership. The first priority should be to implement what both sides want for themselves, and I believe that dialogue is an essential and important prerequisite in this respect. What do you perceive the role of the existing Economic and Social Committee to be in this context, and what changes do you think will need to be made here, to enable it to become more actively involved in the work in future?

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, it is very difficult to sum up this topic. It is a course of events that baffles me. Why? Because it is not Parliament that has adopted different positions on different occasions, but because the European Commission and the Council have suddenly moved from maximum harmonisation to minimum harmonisation. And I would invite Mrs Hautala and Mr Beysen to change this topic too. Politics may be the art of the possible, but if this way of going about things does not benefit the financial services sector nor the consumers, then I think that we should make a different choice. Allow me to give you another rundown of events, for you will then be able to judge for yourself. And I would ask you to bear with me. In May 1992, the draft directive on the marketing of financial services was submitted. This original draft included financial services; so it comprised all distance marketing plus financial services. This met with a great deal of resistance. Eventually, the common position was drafted, from which the financial services were deleted. This happened in 1995. The European Commission was in agreement with this. Parliament attempted at second reading to reverse this situation, but unfortunately lacked a few votes to do so. Then, a Green Paper was published in 1997. Parliament once again opted for incorporating financial services in this directive. We voted in favour of this. The Commission subsequently presented a draft directive in which it rightly proposed maximum harmonisation. Why maximum harmonisation? Because the consumer, wherever he may make his purchases in Europe, should be able to do so subject to the same rules, and must be given the same guarantees. Moreover, this also benefits the financial sector. What transpired? In the common position, minimum harmonisation was all of a sudden opted for. This minimum harmonisation will create a great deal of frustration within the market, as fellow MEPs have already pointed out. I therefore call on you, all of us, to revisit very carefully the first reading of this proposal in Parliament – for which I happened to be rapporteur – and to vote on this proposal after all and also to present it to the Council after all. I have understood that the Council too may have changed its opinion in the mean time. What is now before us, despite the heartfelt concern displayed by Mrs Berger, will, in my view, not lead to anything. And I have the feeling that a huge number of fellow MEPs, not only in this group, but also in other groups, will join me in voting out anything that is cloaked in minimum harmonisation, allowing us to start proper negotiations with the Council.

Political group: PPE-DE
I thank Mr Collins for asking this question at such a sensitive moment in the Iraq crisis. I should like to ask the President-in-Office to convey the view of many of our members – including, I am sure, Mr Collins and certainly myself – that the roadmap to peace should become a reality; and also, on our behalf, to inform Mr Solana that we should redouble our efforts to make that a reality, given the sensitivities in the region following the Iraq crisis.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, yesterday’s Minutes will naturally indicate interventions referring to the so-called ‘Strasbourg Declaration” which intends to implicate the European Parliament in certain considerations which would literally lead to the conclusion that I am a Nazi. This declaration – which, as I have said, implicates the European Parliament, although no such declaration was put before this Parliament – is a completely unacceptable form of manipulation. I thank the President, Mrs Fontaine, who just yesterday expressed her opinion by refuting the implication of this House. Mr President, as well as discrediting the PNV, Eusko Alkartasuna and the democratic government of the Basque Country – who have the kind of attitude which, in the case of Ireland, deserved the Nobel prize – by calling them Nazis, the declaration insults representatives of the European citizens – as in my case: I represent a section of Galician society – by saying that we are more dangerous than the Nazis, and insults groups which are clearly democratic, with decades of history, in an unacceptable and crazy way, which I would like to condemn here and now. I would like these words to be heard, because the European Parliament cannot be implicated in this way in a crazy declaration which I consider to be totally unacceptable.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Madam President, I would like to take this opportunity of thanking my friend and colleague Mr McCartin for his lesson in history. However, primarily I want to respond to Mr Miller who made a point about the British election and about the euro. As he knows perfectly well, but is apparently seeking to hide, the Conservative Party's position on the euro was supported by between 65% and 70% of the British people. It was the one key issue where the public were definitely and clearly on our side. I would remind Mr Miller that his Prime Minister has just sacked the pro-euro foreign minister Robin Cook and replaced him with the much less pro-euro, indeed some have called him a Eurosceptic, Mr Jack Straw. So put that one in your pipe and smoke it!

Political group: PPE-DE