GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Madam President, I should like to extend a warm thanks to the rapporteur for the work she has done. I have often thought that this report was going to outlast her mandate, for that is nearly how long it has been on the table. This was not due to a lack of diligence on her part, for that was, in fact, immense, but rather due to insufficient diligence on the part of the Council. Mrs Oomen-Ruijten rightly pointed out that it was not as a result of any lack of diligence on the part of the Commission. This suggests that we are dealing with a very difficult issue politically speaking. Why? Because a great deal of money is involved. That is the first reason. My second point is that, in everyday life, the Member States do not for one moment consider the people that might break out of their own mould from time to time. They actually assume that everyone remains in their own country, from the day they were born until they die. They, in fact, find it highly inconvenient if that status quo is upset when people move abroad. They may be prepared to take certain measures, but as few and as little as possible, and they then try to snatch back as much as they can. If there is any bother with the budget, then those are the people who are tackled first. That is why the Regulation is also used to limit rights rather than to increase them. Anyone who would like to study this more in-depth should come and have a look at what has happened in the Netherlands and Belgium on this score, where neither country is particularly blameless. Finally, I should like to raise another matter, which is the issue over which there is still a difference of opinion, namely the issue of tax and social security. In fact, I think that Mrs Jensen has already made a very valid point on this matter. She also gave one of the best examples in Denmark, because all social security over there is covered by taxes. What is annoying is that in some cases, people pay taxes in one country and social security contributions in another. As, for example, social security contributions are relatively high in Belgium and non-existent in Denmark, at least in the form of contributions, you are extremely unfortunate if you pay tax in Denmark and social security in Belgium. If the reverse is true, of course, you are extremely fortunate. You then pay relatively little in taxes in Belgium and receive an awful lot of social benefits in Denmark. That is therefore a matter which needs re-addressing and which remains an issue. This is not harmonisation, but it is important that the two types of taxes should be treated in the same way, at least in one and the same country, and this is an issue which really deserves an all-out effort on our part. If we do not solve it, we will never bring about a sound labour market in Europe.

Political group: PPE-DE
Madam President, we can all put our signatures to what is written in the resolution. We know that the United Nations’ Commission for Human Rights requested a moratorium in April last year. This year, this demand was repeated. They also requested all the States which still had the death penalty progressively to reduce the number of crimes for which the death penalty is imposed. We have many shocking figures relating to the number of people that are still awaiting the death penalty in the United States. According to the information that I have, this involves 3 670 people. In the resolution, we point to the prevailing legal uncertainty in the present cases. There is therefore reason to require that all cases be investigated, that is to say that the cases of those who are awaiting punishment should be gone through and, for example, investigations made into whether they have received fair trials. Therefore, a moratorium is necessary in all cases, even those that are not mentioned in the resolution. We are also given hope by the fact that the issue of the death penalty in the United States has been given a completely new political importance. I also value the work that the human rights organisations have done to bring this issue to the fore. IN THE CHAIR: MR COLOM I NAVALVice-President

Political group: ELDR
Madam President, I rise following Mrs Hautala's statement about Mrs Lucas being imprisoned on her way to the part-session here today. It seems strange to me that she was imprisoned on her way here because she represents the South East of England and was arrested five or six hundred miles further north. Maybe, instead of telling the UK Government whom they can arrest and why, the parliamentary authorities could send her a map of the UK and some advice from our travel services as well.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, year after year hundreds of thousands of women are the victims of extreme violence: sexual exploitation, rape, public castigation, burning and stoning. The time came for an initiative to deal with these grave violations. Mrs Smet has put forward a very good report, which also encompasses types of suffering; psychological, physical and sexual suffering. I support her demand that in future there must be clauses to stop EU aid when women’s right are continually and systematically violated. They should be integrated into trade and development agreements with third countries, or bilaterally or multilaterally within the framework of the WTO. If positive steps are not taken to prevent violence against women then that must result in sanctions and these agreements being frozen. International indifference on this issue is embarrassing. This applies to countries such as Afghanistan, where for years the Taliban demoted women to second-class citizens, as well as Iran, where there are serious offences against women. Non-Muslim states are among them too, though, Mr Claeys. To obtain more information about this the Commission should establish contacts with institutions and non-governmental organisations at national, regional and local level. International conferences and talks and – Commissioner Patten – a yearly statement by the Commission on the regression and the progress are further important steps. We must make politicians and the public in the countries affected more aware and more vigilant. These types of violence must also be prosecuted with greater determination in the EU. We have had solutions for years but they have not been implemented. My fellow-Members who spoke before me have also mentioned this. In our Member States case law must be changed on this issue, genital mutilation must be banned and trafficking of women must be fought more determinedly with the cooperation of Europol and Eurojust. The priority, however, is that women are able to use all resources so that they can enjoy their fundamental rights without any discrimination. (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, the Peijs report states that, over 20 years, government expenditure has increased from 35% to 50% of the GNP. What has caused this increase in government expenditure? Is it because public services have been improved, the number of hospitals has increased, additional hospital staff have been hired, public transport and national education have been developed, sufficient social housing has been built? No, it certainly is not! Over the past 20 years, many governments have, on the contrary, privatised services that used to be public. All these governments have pursued money-saving policies with regard to essential public services, have got rid of railway lines, local post offices or hospitals, which are not considered to be profitable. The reason that government expenditure has increased is because of the extravagant sums of money given to employers on a multitude of pretexts, ranging from direct subsidies for reducing taxes and social contributions to giving all types of support – all government authorities seem to excel at making these up. Mrs Peijs cynically proposes making this policy worse by further reducing employers’ social burdens and increasing VAT. The poorest people are being made to pay in order to give money to the richest – if this is not brutal and direct class politics then it is hard to imagine what else it can be. I shall of course be voting against this report.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, Commissioner, many thanks for your explanation. We would not wish to delay the flow of assistance to the accession candidates, so with the agreement of my colleagues from the various groups, I wish to announce that under the conditions just described, we can proceed to a final vote. (Parliament adopted the legislative resolution) *** Report (A5-0293/2001) by Mrs Ria Oomen-Ruijten on behalf of Parliament's delegation to the Conciliation Committee on the joint text for a European Parliament and Council directive on the limitation of emissions of certain pollutants into the air from large combustion plants [C5-0323/2001 – 1998-0225 (COD)] (Parliament approved the joint text)

Political group: PPE-DE
Here we are again talking about waste and saying that the 1994 directive has had the desired impact, although the results differ between countries, between regions, between town and countryside. The progress made is clear to see. The Commission’s proposal seeking to improve the directive’s objectives would, nevertheless, appear quite appropriate. I can therefore only support this step for, in view of the difficulties encountered in the field with regard to the treatment of waste, particularly the treatment of packaging waste, it would seem premature to want to undertake a more in-depth review of the text. There is only one essential demand Parliament must make in this matter, and that is for realism, for our goal is to facilitate the treatment of packaging waste as far as we can and, even before packaging reaches the market, to provide for waste packaging which does the least possible harm to our environment. We therefore need an integrated policy for products and their packaging. Moreover, we must look for outlets for our waste. Recycling is often problematic and it is therefore necessary to apply the principle of prevention and to limit the volume of packaging. Our legislation must, quite simply, integrate prevention, but it also needs to be simpler and more flexible. Some of the definitions used in the directive are also clarified, but the main problem at European level remains the harmonisation of definitions. That became quite clear when Parliament was examining the texts. Quite apart from the problem of waste packaging, it is essential that an in-depth reform is carried out and that the answer to a simple question – ‘What constitutes waste?’ – is found. The problem of waste in Europe is fundamental – for the Community institutions, for the national governments, for local authorities, for companies and for our fellow citizens, who have a key role to play. Perhaps we should be working towards a framework directive on waste.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, Commissioner, I should like to start by thanking and congratulating the rapporteur on her excellent report. I particularly welcome the fact that provisions are geared at several points in the report to particularly vulnerable groups of people and the extensive duty to provide information. The second daughter directive within the framework of improving air quality in Europe must, of course, like previous directives, meet the following objectives, namely to define and stipulate air quality objectives at European level and to create air quality assessment criteria based on standard methods. Care must be taken to ensure that useful information on air quality is available and provided to the public. The objective – and I think that this is the fundamental objective – is to maintain and improve air quality. If this directive is transposed consistently and quickly, I think that we really will be one step closer to this objective. Of the two air pollutants in the report, you will certainly have noticed that there is less discussion of carbon monoxide. The proposed limit value of 10 micrograms/m3 over a period of eight hours, which tallies with the WHO guideline, is accepted by all parties. This acceptance no longer applies to benzene, as you will have gathered from the previous comments. I think that it is hugely important that, for the first time, we have an EU-wide limit value for a carcinogenic substance and it is precisely because of the high health risk, i.e. the cancer risk, and because of the precedent which it will set for other as yet unregulated carcinogenic substances, that it is important for the limit value set in this directive to be transposed into practice as quickly as possible. My group therefore supports the Commission proposal, i.e. 5 micrograms/m3. As far as the content is concerned, we support working towards a future reduction of this limit value, but we feel that a realistic objective will result in faster implementation at this point in time. The real political priority as far as I am concerned is to comply with limit values in all areas, including so-called hotspots, and we must avoid overly generous derogations which will provide a loophole for non-compliance with the limit values for benzene. Regional and local agencies must be involved in finding a solution so that air quality can be improved.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, Mr Bolkestein, ladies and gentlemen, conciliation is a question of reaching a balance, a question of compromise. It involves give and take on both sides. As part of the European legislative process we often find Parliament and the Council negotiating hard in the conciliation procedure. However the outcome is generally a balanced result that the European Parliament can accept. But this does not apply in the case of the 'takeover directive', which, after many years' work, should now be before us in its final form. The European Parliament should reject the result which emerged from a night session in Luxembourg. It is worthless. I am saying that to you quite frankly, although I was a member of this House's delegation to the negotiations. However, I can also tell you that we have never been treated so frostily in any of the Conciliation Committees in which I have been involved. There was not a trace of mutual give and take! By an overwhelming majority, the Council's negotiating team largely swept aside the ideas adopted by the European Parliament. I do not want to go through the details already mentioned again point by point. However, I would warn against this House sweeping the decisions it took by a convincing majority under the carpet and accepting an obscure conciliation result. We would lose face and the public would quite rightly ridicule us for our weakness. In fact the result of the conciliation process that we have before us is so poor that after that night in Luxembourg Commissioner Bolkestein stood before the press and said that legal fine tuning would still be needed. I think that must have been a joke, because there really has been plenty of time for legal fine tuning over all the years. But we should let the Commissioner have his wish! We should reject the text that emerged from the Conciliation Committee and Commissioner Bolkestein can present a workable new draft before long, one which matches not only his ideas but also the ideas of the elected representatives of 370 million Europeans. (Applause)

Political group: PSE
Mr President, I welcome Mr Barnier’s commitment to go to the regions, both to explain and to listen to what citizens have to say. I would like to invite him to my own region of Yorkshire, a major European region that is a full participant in the single European market and a major recipient of European structural funding. He can come with both the hats that he wears as a Commissioner. I would like to ask him how vigorous the Commission will be in this information campaign? In some Member States it is not just a matter of providing information to a public that is not as well informed as it might be. That is certainly important but it is also a question of combating the misinformation that is put around by a very active anti-European movement and anti-European organisations that exist. The Commission will have to be very vigorous in the responses that it puts out to some of the comments that it will be receiving as part of the campaign.

Political group: PSE
Madam President, I should like to add my congratulations to Commissioner Prodi's programme. I particularly welcome his recognition of this virtuous circle of having sustained growth: the information society in an expanding European market with the addition of a fully functioning single currency which will give us the opportunity to genuinely promote prosperity, innovation enterprise, the entrepreneurial spirit and yes – most importantly of all – extra-high value sustainable jobs for our European citizens. I have one observation, not a criticism, to make regarding Commissioner Prodi's statement this morning and that is that it was a little weak on the actual content of economic policy. We must not take anything for granted in terms of how we get the European economy restructured. After all, what is social justice if it is without full employment? Full employment is the best way to generate social justice for our citizens. This is a key priority for us to focus on. I should like to welcome one or two initiatives that have already come from the Commission which will help us: in particular Commissioner Liikanen's commitment to having an innovative knowledge-driven economy. Yes, e-Europe will be the future for us because it will help us create new prosperity and new jobs. I welcome the Commission initiatives now and in the past to support our small and medium-sized enterprises and I would like to congratulate our Portuguese Presidency for its initiative on having a charter for micro-businesses. That is important and something that can be developed through the Lisbon Summit. I also welcome Commissioner Busquin's idea to have a common research area for the whole of the European Union. Again, this is a way that we can help create better opportunities for jobs and for prosperity. You said in your summary, Commissioner Prodi, that liberalisation, competitiveness, keeping inflation low, innovation, science and technology are central for the future success of the European economy and creating jobs. I very much agree with you on that, but we can take nothing for granted. There is still more we have to do, and the Lisbon Summit will become part of that. So with those remarks I would like to congratulate you on the programme and wish it every success.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, my task as draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market was a relatively easy one compared with that of the honourable members in the committee responsible, and I would like to congratulate them all on the outcome, even if we do have to discuss a few compromise amendments in plenary today. The reason I said that my committee’s task was an easy one, is because the proposed draft directive raises few difficulties from a legal viewpoint, and nor is there a great deal of room for manoeuvre when it comes to framing policy. I would also like to say how impressed I am with the logistical quality of the draft directive, which certainly cannot be said of all the Commission’s draft directives. Pursuant to the new Article 63 of the EU Treaty, it is now the Community’s task to settle the matter of family reunification, and the Community must take these measures in accordance with the provisions of international law, in particular the European Convention of Human Rights and the other instruments of international law already mentioned by our committee chairman. The right to respect for family life is a universal human right. It is not divisible and cannot be reserved for EU citizens alone. This would be a dubious line to take, particularly as we are concurrently working on a European Charter of Fundamental Rights. If Community provisions are now to be put in place for family reunification, we also need to close incomprehensible and, in some cases, absurd gaps in the existing legislation. This particularly applies to the right of EU citizens themselves to live together in their home land with family members originating from a third country and not to be in the position where the only way they can live with them as a family is to avail themselves of freedom of movement and settle in another Member States. Therefore this directive is only too welcome from a legal viewpoint, and it is to be hoped that neither Parliament, nor, more importantly, the Council, will make any changes to the substance of the Commission’s original draft.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, the news that we are seeing at the moment alleging misconduct by the Russian Central Bank comes as very little surprise to many of us. It has long been evident that the large sums of money provided to prop up the national level of the Russian economy have not produced the desired effect and that the top-down approach might have appeared simple, but it can be less efficient in the long term. We are aware that the gap between rich and poor has become a chasm, that the people of Russia are losing faith in the ideal of democracy and that the infrastructure is crumbling and workers are not paid. The West might have done better to have paid the teachers, doctors and miners directly, perhaps. If we are to invest further in the Russian economy we have to find the means to support and develop local economic activity - as our colleague has just said - which meets people’s needs and provides a sense of stability and involvement. There are many examples of that being developed in areas of social exclusion in the world’s poorer countries at the moment, from which we can learn. The emphasis on money laundering and crime is only part of the issue. We need to look at how to develop internal investment. The example from the West is that you bring in other people to do the investing and they take the cash with them. So perhaps we would do well in this House to look at how we talk about issues such as the repatriation of profit to countries producing it, rather than simply extracting the cash as well as the natural resources.

Political group: Verts-ALE
In general, we think that the proposal is balanced and constructive, with the exception, however, of the inadequately justified limitation upon self-handling. Restricting, as now, self-handling to apply only to personnel on board a vessel and not to land-based personnel such as employees at a factory near the port, means that the legislation ignores how the business operates. The opportunities for competition within this area are in this way reduced. We have therefore chosen to vote against the committee where these aspects are concerned. With regard to pilotage services, we agree with the proposal that the nature of these is such that they ought not to be covered by the directive.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, I welcome the Commission's intention to make the EU the first supranational democracy in the world. That is a fantastic project, and people understand it and support it. In any democracy, the government is elected by parliament, and that is why I also welcome the proposal that here in the EU the Commission and its President should at last be elected by this House and not by the European Council. The present approach is really topsy-turvy, and I think that we need to reinstate Montesquieu's principles. So I congratulate you on having managed to get there. This is a really important point, and one where Parliament and the Commission can now pull in the same direction. I would also like to congratulate you on clearly advocating that there should be just one executive and not two. There cannot be an elected President of the European Council alongside the elected President of the Commission. We do not want the institutions to be renationalised, what we need is to apply the Community method, and in this paper the Commission and Parliament are on the same track. We must get that through in the Convention! (Applause)

Political group: PSE