GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the initiatives adopted within the framework of the creation of a European area of freedom, security and justice have made this major political objective of the Union one of the most dynamic vectors for the broadening and deepening of European integration. As regards the area of freedom, security and justice, the creation of a Eurojust unit in the field is certainly a most promising leap forward. Eurojust is facing and trying to find an answer to one of the most serious, pressing threats to the rule of law: transnational organised crime, which is estimated to be worth a frightening amount in the world economy and, of necessity, in the European economy too. The nation states have shown abundant signs that the legal mechanisms they have are insufficient to tackle organised crime in a satisfactory way. Here, then, the European Union will have exceptional scope for affirming the principle of subsidiarity, for Eurojust is the democracies' necessary, indispensable response to the scourge of organised crime. Such crime has accompanied the growing interdependence of economies and technological developments, exploiting the weaknesses in national legal systems which turn their backs on each other, impotent victims of an anachronistic pretension to self-sufficiency. Eurojust and the inevitable European public prosecution service of the future confirm that European integration is a necessity for citizenship, a tangible response to tangible problems affecting the ordinary citizen. It is on the success of all the concerted action at judicial and police level that the future confidence of societies in their democratic institutions will largely depend. Eurojust will help preserve the effectiveness and prestige of these institutions and will render a great service to the rule of law. Information, cooperation and joint coordination measures are the key to a new push forward in the fight against money laundering, the trafficking of human beings, environmental crimes, forgery and other serious offences. The proposed college is an innovative instrument essential to the pursuit of these objectives. However, for the rule of law to be strengthened as we would like with the creation of this important instrument of judicial cooperation, it is important that procedural guarantees, so important in domestic law, should also be worked into the operation of the Eurojust system so that the fundamental rights that these guarantees aim to preserve do not end up being diminished. In conclusion, I congratulate the rapporteur on the thoroughness and quality of her report and, in particular, on the sense of balance which inspired the proposed amendments.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, what is transparency? Transparency is guaranteed, or so one might and should argue, when as many of the European institutions' documents as possible are made accessible to all citizens of the EU with an interest in them and also when meetings of the Council are guaranteed to be open to the public. It is to this banal sentence that we can reduce the foundation document of the European Transparency Initiative, called into being by a very wide range of parliamentarians and people in public life across Europe and only now beginning to become effective on the basis of Regulation 1049/2001 and the adjustments which we in this Parliament are now making to it. There are still different conceptions of what we want transparency to be like. I, myself, want the European transparency formula to be an American-Swedish hybrid, with unlimited access to almost everything, with not even a registry, and with a real possibility of watching over and permanently examining what we do in Parliament, and especially what is done in the Council, where the really important decisions are taken. This Parliament does not yet, unfortunately, have the majority required for this. It can be argued that the European public, in all its diversity, is far from ready. There is also room for the argument that, if an Italian or Austrian citizen writes to one of the EU institutions, and his letter is promptly recorded in a public registry, he would certainly not have reckoned with that and might react differently from a Swede, who would treat it as a matter of course. I think we must, in any case, carry on along this road, especially now that events around the world make the definition of European values an issue. Transparency is definitely one of them. What we now have in front of us is a step in this direction. Mention has already been made of the deliberations in the Committee on Constitutional Affairs. I would like the to come up with a substantially clearer explanation of Amendment No 15 than has been produced to date. I would personally have no problem whatever with the production of necessary documents in the context of budgetary control, or indeed with what is demanded at the end. But if it only scores an own goal, it would be better to leave it out. Mr Cashman has already said all that needs to be said about Amendment No 17. Amendment No 14 meets with our group's undivided approval. It represents an improvement. Even the deletion of the restriction to ‘permanent’ committees in the first part of Amendment No 15 is only to be welcomed. We must all be aware that there can be no democracy without transparency. We still have plenty of work to do before that is achieved.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, in its opinion on the Green Paper on compensation to crime victims, the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market congratulates the Commission on the approach it has proposed and adopted and welcomes the definition of the three major objectives for possible action at Community level: firstly, the need to guarantee crime victims within the Union the possibility of obtaining state compensation, providing for a safety net for all Union residents; secondly, the need to adopt the necessary measures to limit the unfair effects that result from the great differences that currently exist between levels of compensation in the different Member States, which, in practice, vary according to the Member State of residence of the victim or the Member State in which they were the victims of the crime; and, thirdly, the need to facilitate cross-border victims’ access to state compensation, ensuring that victims’ access to compensation is not excessively dependent upon the place in the Union in which the crime was committed. However, the Committee on Legal Affairs has expressed some considerations – and I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Angelilli, for having included in the body of the text all the amendments contained in the Committee on Legal Affairs’ opinion – to the effect that compensation should cover both material and non-material damage caused to the victim. Generous time limits should be set for the submission of claims for state compensation; similar provisions must apply concerning the dies a quo (the date from which the time limit is calculated) in order to avoid disparities in the way cases are treated. Moreover, it is crucial that harmonised compensation claims forms are drawn up in all the Community languages and that the minimum procedural guarantees include, inter alia, the right to impartial judgment, the right to be represented by a lawyer, the right of access to the procedure and easier access for cross-border victims to State compensation. In conclusion, the Community initiative on compensation to victims would indeed be a major contribution to the creation of a European area of freedom, security and justice.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, I too should like to thank the rapporteur warmly for this work that is partly his own and partly the work of others. This is why I should also like to extend a warm thank you to Mr Fatuzzo for his contribution. In my view, it is a little bit of a mixture of the best that the Italian and Swedish cultures have to offer. Milan meets Malmö, if you like. As far as I am concerned, this work should be kept more or less unchanged. It is extremely regrettable that the Confederal Group of the should have tabled these amendments. I have to say, I have listened with great interest to Mrs Ainardi, who reminded me of Louis XVIII who returned after the revolution and of whom people said that he had learned nothing and forgotten everything. I find it even more deplorable that Mr Bouwman appears keen to associate himself with this statement. We are facing real problems in Europe in the area of pensions. Naturally, we could maintain the pension system, but the best way of eventually destroying it is to do what has been proposed in the amendments by the Group: to act as if nothing is wrong, while the system does show up inadequacies. After all, when this system was agreed upon, the average lifespan was 63 years, two years under 65. Fortunately, the average lifespan is quite a bit longer now. In the light of this, it is unacceptable for us to say that we could carry on as we are for ever. Mr Andersson is pointing in a certain direction, and this direction receives our support. Pension schemes are slightly different in every country and cannot be compared, but the worst thing is that some people are behaving as some did on the Titanic who, when the ship was sinking, thought that nothing was wrong. This is dangerous. I hope that the majority of this Parliament – and I have every faith in them – want to distance themselves from attitudes of this kind and want to commit themselves to the people who really matter. After all, poor people will not gain in any way if there is no money left in the end.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, Commissioner, the Commission communication on the Union’s action plan to combat drugs is an important and positive communication. This plan covers all aspects of the problem and opens new prospects for a more mainstream, efficient approach. However, and this goes without saying, more resources are needed. I would like to congratulate Mrs Giannakou on her highly substantive report, especially the emphasis on international collaboration and the introduction of a systematic, yearly inter-pillar Council meeting to improve the monitoring and evaluation of action intended mainly to reduce the supply of drugs. In the light of the international agreement concluded by the Special Session of the United Nations Organisation in June 1998 for a balanced approach to the problem which aims to reduce both supply and demand, I would like to highlight the potential offered by Article 152 of the Treaty. This article allows the Union to complement national policies with action directed towards improving public health, preventing illness and reducing drugs-related damage to health. The European Union action plan for the period from 2000 to 2004 must therefore include, over and above what is mentioned in the report, practices and programmes directed towards breaking the habit and restricting damage to the health of drug users. Similarly, we need to focus our attention on and give priority funding to programmes to evaluate practices aimed at prevention, treatment and reintegration and in connection with the consequences to society and public health, so that Member States and applicant countries can use the conclusions as a guide when deciding their national policy. Finally, I would like to point out that the European monitoring centre in Lisbon is carrying out important work and I trust that the information and data collected by it will prove how efficient European and international collaboration has been in this difficult fight.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, I am afraid that I arrived too late to vote, and so I do not feel that I have the right to give an explanation of vote. (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, what has surprised me most in this debate is that nothing shakes the faith of some Members in the rigidity of the criteria for nominal convergence. Neither the major economic downturn nor the reduction in private investment, nor the steady rise in unemployment and poverty shake their faith in the dogmas of the Stability Pact, whose budgetary and monetary rigidity has not only contributed to worsening the current economic crisis but has also limited the potential for growth in the European Union, with all the consequences this has for the increasingly high levels of inequality, poverty and social exclusion. This situation is particularly serious, however, for the cohesion countries, such as Portugal, whose specific problems require a dynamic public sector and major public investment in order to attain a high level of real convergence, which is being hampered by the blind application of the Stability Pact’s irrational criteria. As we all know, globalisation should make monetary and budgetary policies more flexible towards the specific needs of each country and not lead to the rigid approach currently being applied, which ends up imposing flexibility on salaries and the labour market, giving pride of place to monetary policies and attaching far less importance to social policies. I regret the fact that the Committee on Economic Affairs did not consider the proposal I tabled, urging the Commission and the Council immediately to suspend the Stability Pact and calling for an in-depth revision of the EU’s economic and monetary policy guidelines, particularly in order to take account of issues such as the sustainable economic development of employment and the implementation of all social rights through universal and high-quality public services. It makes no economic sense to set the same budgetary deficit threshold for countries that have different levels of development, and nor is there any economic justification for sacrificing everything in the name of zero deficit. It is therefore clear that the fundamental objective of the pact is political, and this is why we are also unhappy about the proposals that have been put forward here, specifically by the Commission.

Political group: GUE-NGL
I would thank the Council. I am nonetheless a little surprised at the answer. I was under the impression that it was not possible to act if it was a national legal system which had pronounced judgement, because that would amount to interfering in national affairs. In that way, Article 6 of the Treaty of Amsterdam would really, of course, be revoked, that is to say if action were to be taken on the basis of national legal systems. It can hardly be intended that a Member State should be able to do whatever it likes as long as it does so via its own legal system. I would also ask if the Council intends to look more closely into this issue and perhaps examine it in more specific terms.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, I asked for the floor yesterday but was not allowed to speak by the President at the time. I simply wanted to say, firstly, that the Spanish Constitution establishes a model of self-government which is infinitely more generous than that achieved by Northern Ireland. Secondly, this self-government has mainly been exercised by nationalist forces and, at the moment, is exclusively so. Unlike Northern Ireland, the ministerial posts are not shared between nationalists and non-nationalists. There are political forces – we have just seen them here – which disagree with the constitutional model given to us by the Spanish. However, our Constitution allows this disagreement to be voiced by peaceful and democratic means. The parties aiming to destroy constitutional order enter the elections under the flag of independence. What has to be decided at this point is whether or not it is legal to eliminate those who disagree. Mr President, I would like to end by saying that, for 40 years, the children of my generation listened wearily to a rhetoric which asserted that ballot-boxes were better off destroyed and that words should be replaced by fists and guns. The children who left Spain with clean hands will not return to hear this rhetoric again.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, I would like once again to congratulate the Commission on having presented us with a raft of proposals intended to facilitate the adaptation of the European Union to the realities of the new European society. Europe, once a continent of emigrants, has now become a continent of immigrants. The proposals put forward by the Commission aim to facilitate the integration of these immigrant populations into our respective societies. In the debate that took place in the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market on this issue, several amendments were tabled: some were serious, others less so. In the Committee on Citizens’ Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, the committee responsible, Baroness Ludford made a sterling effort to attempt to refine and perfect the legal concepts, but I am left with the impression that, just because of the odd majority, the text of the directive would be ruined if we were to adopt most of the amendments approved by this Committee. Baroness Ludford, herself, has tabled some proposals in this regard, which appear to us to be correct, and I believe that, in short, the most important thing that this House could do now is to try to steer the text of the Commission proposal back to a form more along those lines. In short, this means achieving the highest degree of equality and comparable conditions between long-term residents from third countries and Community citizens, whilst respecting, naturally, national laws and their constitutional principles, without establishing artificial requirements that would hinder the integration of these people who have already been living in our countries for a long time. To sum up, I believe that what we can hope to achieve as a result of the final proposals presented to us by Baroness Ludford and the debate that took place in the Committee on Citizens’ Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs is that, as far as possible, the House should change the text back to the original Commission proposal and reject many of the amendments that have been adopted, as I have already said, by a chance majority in the Committee on Citizens’ Rights.

Political group: PSE
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I was slightly surprised by the last two speeches because I assumed that we had reached a reasonable compromise between the first reading and now in the conciliation procedure and that we had improved the Commission proposal on a number of counts. I think the conciliation procedure was swift and determined to reach a result, the Council was constructive, and I rather had the impression that the and the Liberals had moved some way towards us. I thought that sense had triumphed! Nonetheless, and here I agree with the previous speakers, one aspect must give us cause for concern and that is implementation in the Member States, but not – as Mr Bushill-Matthews said – for technical reasons. I think there is another reason why implementation should give us cause for concern. I heard today about a professional musician working with a famous German orchestra who turned down an interview with us out of fear of reprisals. He was to have described his problems as a professional musician but was too frightened to do so, and I am sure he is not the only case. Employee protection, as Mrs Stauner said, is a basic necessity in modern working life, not a superfluous luxury. The directive has added some important aspects in order to give employees in all sectors, from music to industry, the security of knowing they have a right to instruction and information on the risks to which they are exposed and that employers must point these risks out to them. There are several options open to the Member States here, not just passive hearing protection. They can also introduce new working methods and develop new jobs in which noise levels are kept to a minimum.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, like everyone else, I want to join in the praise of the Danish Government which has taken this initiative. It goes to show that there can be aggressive and progressive action in the Council when it comes specifically to environmental questions. As we know, conscious and intentional misconduct by companies and individuals in environmental matters not only puts our countryside at risk but also endangers people’s lives. I am quite convinced that if anyone says the word Teckomatorp in my country, Sweden, then everyone – or at any rate the majority of people – knows what the word signifies, even though it is an environmental crime which was committed more than 20 years ago. It concerned a company which did not manage to deal with its poisonous waste but chose instead to bury it in the ground and in that way put a whole district at risk. Unfortunately, Teckomatorp is not the only event of this kind, and many representatives here in Parliament have also witnessed other events which have occurred since then, not to mention the situation – akin to that in the Wild West – which prevails on our high seas. Obviously, we must regard environmental crimes as seriously as we regard all other criminal acts. Common definitions of environmental crime are therefore also needed. I agreed with the draftsperson of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, Mrs Schörling, that, in order to prevent environmental crime, we also need effective legislation governing environmental liability. Preventive measures are the best way of guarding against further crimes against our environment. If we are to be able to investigate suspected environmental crimes efficiently and well, special knowledge is also required on the part of both police and prosecutors. Otherwise, there is a danger of these crimes’ not being properly investigated. If these crimes are not detected quickly, they can remain unsolved or perhaps not have anything done about them at all. In the few seconds I have left, I want to address the Commission directly with the request which, among others, Mrs Thors and Mrs McKenna mentioned in connection with the transport of livestock, instances of which occur every day within the Union and which are perhaps the most obvious environmental crimes we face today. I should like the Commissioner to take this issue seriously on board and ensure that we get something done about the current situation. I really believe we have the citizens of the entire Union behind us when it comes to doing something about the dreadful ways in which livestock are transported.

Political group: PSE