GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Mr President, this report has been the subject of negotiations right up to the last minute, and I should therefore be grateful if you would take account of this proposal for an oral amendment which, in the form in which I shall read it to you, should perhaps facilitate the adoption of the report at first reading. I shall read the amendment to you, and I shall call upon you to go on to ask the representative of the Commission what the latter’s position will be on this proposal. Here is the wording of the amendment as it has finally been negotiated: ‘Whereas the Commission could call upon those Member States in respect of which various insured persons are in danger of being prejudiced to come up with bilateral solutions and to suggest a transition period’. This amendment could be added as a recital. (The President established that there were no objections to the oral amendment)

Political group: PSE
I wholeheartedly support amendments to the Commission's revised proposal on tobacco that will strengthen health warnings on cigarette packets in the EU. The new cigarette health warnings will cover half the surface of cigarette packs, with warnings 40% of the packet size on the front and 50% on the back. Smoking kills and there is no nice way to put that. Half of all long-term smokers will eventually be killed by tobacco and of these, half will die during middle age losing 20 to 25 years of life. As many as half a million people in Europe are killed by tobacco, and 85% of lung cancers are caused by smoking. Madam President, I would have welcomed the radical proposal to use pictures to illustrate the damage which smoking does to health, like they do in Canada. If shocking pictures of smoke-filled lungs or rotting teeth show the harmful effects of smoking, go ahead and print them on packs. I am disappointed it was not accepted. It is preposterous that tobacco companies are trying to destroy this legislation. I am fed up with them trying to put a stop to these proposals. They have misled people for far too long. At present, warnings are cleverly hidden by displays or coloured packaging. Smokers or those considering smoking must know the full risks of their choice. The proposal will ban the use of misleading terms such as ‘ultra light’ and ‘low tar’. People have been hooked on the idea that ‘mild’ and ‘low tar’ cigarettes are healthier. This is simply not true. Low tar cigarettes cause just as much damage as normal cigarettes. This legislation will spell out the dangers of smoking and save thousands of lives.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, could you please check whether Amendment No 2 of the on the resolution on foot-and-mouth disease has actually been voted on? I myself have my doubts. Could you also inform me of what would happen if that appeared not to be the case? I can in any event assure you that this amendment still reflects the ’s position, and perhaps you could record this as such in the declaration of vote. However, I have the strong suspicion that this amendment was not voted on at all. - Piecyk Report (A5-0111/2001)

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, when the common position arrived here, as the former shadow rapporteur of my group, I felt slightly abandoned by the rapporteur of first reading who had left this House. When it also transpired that the file of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs had been passed on to the Industry Committee, then I felt completely orphaned, but the coordinator and the new EPP shadow rapporteur have adopted me in the Industry Committee for a short while, which made up for a lot of things and for which I would like to express my thanks to both. I would also like to say a word of thanks to the rapporteur, Mr Murphy, who has done a sterling job. Mr President, the common position is better than the original proposal. The Industry Committee, however, has incorporated a few more amendments and I hope that they can be conciliated swiftly because the SMEs are desperate for the entry into effect of this directive, but quality should come before speed. The report meets with my full approval. I still have questions but only with regard to the bill of exchange, Amendment No 18. I am aware that the bill of exchange is used in one of our Member States as a means to counter excessive payments. However, I do think that the bill of exchange is too strict an instrument. It is an unconditional order to pay a certain sum on a certain day and even if there are serious reasons for challenging the claim, one cannot refer to them as the debtor. If the bill also needs to be guaranteed and accepted by a bank, then this becomes an expensive business. Personally, I hold the opinion that we should confine ourselves to judicial review on account of unreasonable terms. I would like to know the Commissioner’s opinion regarding this Amendment No 18.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, I am an elk hunter in Lapland in northern Sweden. If we do not hunt elk every year, the elk population grows rapidly, the number of people killed in road accidents rises and there is a considerable increase in damage to the forests. When, in September, we begin hunting in the morning, it is often freezing, and the climate at that time of the year corresponds to the temperature in a refrigerator. Sometimes, it even corresponds to the temperature in a freezer. In my part of the country, there is, from the environmental point of view, no better refrigerator for the hunter than nature’s own cold-storage room. The bigger the EU becomes, the more difficult it becomes to regulate in detail using EU provisions. The EU directives must hold good in all parts of the EU. They must provide scope for adjusting the provisions according to different circumstances. Member States with up-and-running procedures governing the inspection of game before it is released onto the market must be able to retain their rules. In Sweden, politicians who want to influence opinion against European cooperation have exploited this proposal for a directive to cast suspicion on the EU as a threat to traditional hunting. It is important to emphasise that they are mistaken, for the EU has no legal powers to regulate hunting for household requirements and the use of game for private consumption. This also emphasises the need for general provisions governing hunting to be decided upon in accordance with the subsidiarity principle. Through Mr Schnellhardt’s efforts, the section on game in this directive has become really commendable.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, should I be unable to speak about the content, I would only say that the previous remark from the side of the House is complete baloney.

Political group: ELDR
Madam President, I would like to make a very brief remark. I would never judge the matters raised by my colleagues, but I would like to say that these talks with the Commission should perhaps keep to the Commission’s discussion and their decisions, otherwise, we risk running over into another section which will soon begin – Question Time. So I think that if we want to make this time meaningful, we must keep it as we initially wanted it to be. A quick question to President Prodi on the organisation chart. In the second Wise Men’s report, there is a point which concerns national interests which have supposedly been organised to some degree in the Commission. I think that for an institution like the Commission there is nothing worse, along with fraud, than this: the thought that there is no impartiality or supranationality. Does the policy you have begun concerning directors-general also consist of examining, tackling and facing up to the issue of the Commission’s impartiality and independence?

Political group: PSE
Mr President, it is difficult for any of us in this House to comprehend why one human being should kill another, and yet in Colombia members of guerrilla and paramilitary groups kill each other and thousands of civilians without qualms, and in some cases with relish. This resulted in over 400 massacres in 1999. Sadly, for those 400 massacres committed by the government, paramilitary groups and guerrilla groups, not one person was brought to trial. The ordinary people of Colombia live and suffer in an environment of oppression caused not only by these paramilitary and guerrilla groups, but often at the hands of a government which is either unwilling or unable to protect them. As a body that has consistently upheld fundamental human rights and social justice, we need to do what we can to contribute towards bringing peace to a country that has been living under the horrors of civil war for over four decades. In our individual Member States, and collectively as the European Union, we must exert whatever pressure we can to bring the government and FARC back to the negotiating table, under a real ceasefire agreement genuinely observed by all parties to the conflict. We must also support those groups working for peace within Colombia, which have provided a safe haven for civilians but have recently been under attack from the AUC and FARC. Additionally we must persuade the United States to fund peace initiatives rather than simply giving more money to the Colombian Government for military and drug eradication purposes. The people of Colombia are tired of the fighting. We, as a democratically elected forum, must use our moral authority to help the people of Colombia in their struggle to bring to an end the conflict in their country.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, between 22 and 24 October last, Nigerian soldiers raged among the people of Benue state. Over 200 civilians were killed in this massacre and houses and market stalls were burned down. There must be a swift, impartial, effective inquiry into these massacres. The Nigerian Federal government must guarantee full respect for the Constitution and the rule of law without delay. It is not doing so, despite the hopes placed in it. The Nigerian army is incapable of restoring law and order; moreover, this is not its role. Only a police force which respects human rights would be able to rebuild trust between the different communities. It is the duty of the European Parliament to condemn these massacres, which come on top of religious intolerance and miscarriages of justice. The way the sharia is currently being wrongly applied in Nigeria is a violation of fundamental human rights, especially the rights of women. Neither European Union nor United Nations resolutions have acknowledged the escalation of the ethnic conflicts in Nigeria. There is an urgent need for a humanitarian aid system to be established for displaced persons and refugees. Lastly, the European Union should implement the procedure laid down by Article 96 of the Cotonou Agreement.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the European Parliament's delegation for relations with the South Caucasus is deeply concerned about the dramatic events currently being enacted there. The unilateral imposition of a visa regime on Georgia, with the exception of two regions of Georgia, will create new divisions in a country which is a member of the Council of Europe, wishes to develop democratically, and with which we have concluded an agreement precisely in order to support it in all areas. These developments are leading to tensions with neighbouring states and to huge obstacles for the Georgians themselves, some of whom work in the Russian Federation and are now experiencing difficulties. In order to obtain a visa, they have to travel back to Tiflis. In some cases they cannot even afford to do this. And the other side is that these disruptions will also have economic consequences. We are very much concerned that because of its oil reserves the entire South Caucasus is now at the mercy of commercial interests and has also become a European trouble spot. We should not just wring our hands about this, we should actually do everything in our power. We know from our Georgian friends in national parliaments and from the embassy, which has contacted us, that they really are in dire straits, and that they fear further developments, especially as a wedge is being driven between Armenia and Azerbaijan, which Moscow evidently regards as greater friends. Georgia fears that it will become isolated. So these are truly dramatic events. At the end of December, gas pipelines from Russia to Georgia were even blocked on the alleged grounds that payments had not been made, even though the financing arrangements were quite different. So these are all things which when explained logically sound quite harmless, but which demonstrate to us that the situation has dramatically intensified over the last six months. We are therefore asking the Commission to consider, in conjunction with the Council, whether we could not review and work out a better approach to these conflict situations, based on appropriate decisions which will help people there who want to build a democratic society and seek a peaceful future, and to support Georgia in observing human rights and complying with the other obligations it has entered into within the Council of Europe. It is very hard in these difficult circumstances for Georgia to observe all its current human rights obligations. That is why we are calling on the Commission to act here. We have made requests and have largely reached cross-party agreement in Parliament that something should be done. We need to work together to come up with solutions which will promote a peaceful way forward.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, the events of 11 September ought to have strengthened transatlantic relations by virtue of the emotions they unleashed and the solidarity displayed. On the contrary, it appears today that relations have been weakened. The North Atlantic Alliance, which took the decision to invoke Article 5 of its charter for the first time, is in crisis because the Americans did not see the need to enlist the aid of its organisational structure in the war in Afghanistan. NATO is mulling over this manifestation of unilateralism, and no one within the organisation wishes to see it as proof of the Americans’ indifference towards their European allies. I too support this view and share the ensuing frustration, but I do not subscribe to the overall conclusions drawn from it. I have always been a proponent of the idea that the prevention and management of crises by the international community should be regionalised. Our experience at the start of the Balkan crisis showed us that sending in troops from all corners of the earth, from Vancouver to Vladivostok and from Moscow to Buenos Aires, for all its huge symbolic value, was not an efficient way to proceed. Effective intervention in the maintenance and restoration of peace in specific parts of the world depends on familiarity with the culture and history of the country in crisis. This is what prompted the international community to support the establishment of a pan-African peacekeeping force, for example. It is also what prompted the Americans to base their operations in Kabul directly on the provision of support to the Afghan forces who were opposed to the barbaric dictatorship of the Taliban. As I said in Brussels in 1993, the primary mission of NATO is to intervene in European territory and on the fringes of Europe, particularly in the Mediterranean and the Middle East, in order to guarantee and develop peace and stability throughout these areas. Within the Alliance, I believe it is legitimate that the Americans, who are aware of our prosperity, require us to assume an increasing share of the burden of maintaining a European defence system that has hitherto fallen almost entirely on them. I believe that Europe must prepare itself to take over a leadership role which the Americans are willing to transfer to us gradually. To this end, the governments of the Union must possess the necessary will and must provide the necessary resources. Do you believe, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, that Europe is finally ready to assume this role?

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, Commissioner, speaking on behalf of the at the time of the parliamentary resolution on the BSE crisis, I told you that the European countries which claimed to have no cases of mad-cow disease were the countries that were not looking for it. Alas, you will see that subsequent events have proved me right, as they often prove us right when we give timely warnings of the risks to which the earth and mankind are exposed by unbridled liberal economics, but our warnings are not heeded until the predicted disaster has come to pass. Today I can say that the BSE crisis has been underestimated by the Commission and, more especially, by the Member States. Under pressure from which lobby? Everyone in this Chamber knows that Europe's main mission since 1993 has been to operate as a large market without frontiers, a market where anything can be bought and sold, even infected meat and bone meal. Has this self-centred policy now been abandoned? I have returned from Porto Alegre, and I can tell you that the Brazilians and Argentinians whom I met there admit that they have been doing the same thing in various places, namely feeding animal carcasses to cattle. I very much fear that, if they started looking, they too would find cases of BSE. Be that as it may, fifteen years after the first case of mad-cow disease, Community decisions are still lagging several steps behind the disease. The last meeting of the Council of Agriculture Ministers was no exception to this rule. Instead of purely and simply banning the use of animal fat in certain forms, as the Scientific Veterinary Committee had tacitly suggested, the Council preferred to take a half-measure by prescribing heat treatment of fats. The update you have just presented to us, Commissioner Byrne, is disturbing on several counts. We have learned, for instance, that one Member State allows the inclusion of untreated specified-risk materials in feed mixes, that others are not managing to remove the spinal column at the abattoir and that some of the approved tests have turned out to be rather ineffective in the field. Lastly, I must ask some questions about the number of tests conducted by Member States, because some of the figures pose problems, such as those from Portugal, Greece and the United Kingdom, the country at the source of the epidemic, which conducts only 600 tests per day, as against 37 000 in Germany and 150 000 in Ireland, for example. What do you intend to do, Commissioner, to harmonise these campaigns properly, to ensure that the same level of protection against this epidemic is finally guaranteed throughout Europe and that the consumer does not have to bear the whole cost alone? Reorientation is necessary and must be governed by two objectives: to transform the common agricultural policy into a system of safe food production and to extend such reforms beyond cattle farming and the current crisis by addressing the issue of battery rearing in general, rather than clearing up one mistake to go on to cause another. After beating your breast about the BSE crisis today, Commissioner, do not now go on to promote genetically modified organisms.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, a glance at German cable television, where some 30 channels are now already jostling for attention, is enough to show that multiplicity is not the same thing as diversity. In competition with commercial suppliers, there is easily a danger of succumbing to demands for mass appeal and neglecting less lucrative areas of interest. That is why it is so important for audiovisual strategy to be linked to protection of the pluralism and diversity of opinion which are now the crucial bases for democratic opinion-forming, as well as for public service media to be guaranteed an equal opportunity to develop in the media market of the future. There must be non-discriminatory access to this future market for all citizens, and there must also be non-discriminatory access for suppliers of all types of content. Specifically, this means market transparency and preventing developments whereby economic power turns into the concentration of media ownership and finally into the abuse of political power. These key considerations define the most important premisses for the further development of statutory frameworks. Mr Veltroni's report makes important proposals in this area. However, not everything can be regulated by law. I should therefore like to address a matter which has still not been mentioned in this House, namely the acquisition of media-related skills. You have to get to know your way around what the multimedia world has to offer in order to be able to separate the wheat from the chaff, select what is of value and hone your judgement. The transfer of media-related skills must become a component of the Community’s audiovisual strategy. To that extent, the Commission’s communication still does not go far enough.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, under the Treaties, Parliament has the right to be consulted on the appointment of members of the Court of Auditors. The Committee on Budgetary Control held hearings on 22 and 23 November and adopted by secret ballot a favourable opinion on each of the candidates. However I was disappointed, like Mrs Stauner, that we had very few members who were women. Of the eight candidates put forward by the Council only one was a woman. That will mean that as of next year, two of the Court's 15 members will be women, which is an improvement but still not enough. I would therefore appeal to the Member States to put their own house in order. I would also like to make some broader points about the composition of the Court of Auditors. The system of appointing one member to the Court of Auditors from each Member State will have to be reformed with enlargement. In the same way that the Commission and Parliament cannot be allowed to grow indefinitely, neither can the Court. That will be considered at the IGC. But in terms of the Court it is important to get away altogether from the system of appointments by nationality. The role of the Court is to examine all Community revenue and expenditure to see whether it has been spent in a lawful and regular manner and whether financial management has been sound. I see no reason why that role needs to be carried out by Member State appointees. That system is simply not sustainable in such an institution. Members of the Court should be appointed on the basis of their ability and specific skills, not on the basis of their nationality. There is a danger that Member States' appointees may still feel some loyalty to their national capitals and may be seen as trying to water down criticisms of their own Member States. What is needed is a court that is, and is seen to be, independent of Member States' interests. Ultimately that should mean a system where we appoint proper, qualified auditors to the Court. The events of the past year make it all the more important that we have a Court able to make criticisms where necessary, both of the Commission and of Member States, which, after all, are responsible for the management of about 85% of the funds.

Political group: PSE