GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Mr President, I think that we all remember various resolutions from Parliament against the death penalty, which led to an increase in recent years in the countries who have abolished the death penalty, or at least in those who have had a practical moratorium, in which executions have not taken place in recent years. Today we are talking about three countries in particular: South Korea, Taiwan and Japan, in which some measures have been taken which at least give us hope. In Japan there has been a bill, and the Japanese Diet has created a league against the death penalty. In South Korea there has been a bill, which was signed by 155 of the 273 representatives. In Taiwan the number of crimes punishable by the death penalty has been reduced. I think that these three facts can lead us to believe that in these three countries, in the not too distant future, the death penalty could be abolished. We should think not only about the harsh conditions under which prisoners condemned to death live, but also that there are 70 prisoners in South Korea and more than 50 prisoners in Taiwan who are still awaiting the death penalty. In the European Union we have concluded that the death penalty is barbaric. We therefore support the proposal from the European Council that universal abolition of the death penalty should be achieved without too much delay, so that we can look to the future with greater hope.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, my comments relate to Côte d'Ivoire. You gave permission to send a parliamentary mission on 9 December on the basis of a resolution adopted on 10 October. I would like to thank you for this. This mission has not been able to take place, however, due to the fact that neither of Parliament’s two main groups, the Group and the Group, was able to provide two MEPs. In my view, it is a matter of regret, and particularly damaging, that Parliament, which is in fact contributing to the development policy, is unable to intervene in a country at war, and is therefore content with observation missions or investigations into the massacres and does not take part in the prevention and the management of a conflict with such important implications as that affecting Côte d'Ivoire, one of the most strategic countries in the whole of West Africa. I therefore call on you, Mr President, as I know that you are concerned by this matter, to enable a European Parliament mission to visit Côte d'Ivoire before the end of the year, since this is what President Gbagbo, France and the West African Development Community countries have requested. This is a question of honour and dignity for this House.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, I wish first to pay tribute to the work put in by our rapporteur, who has made very great efforts to live up to the ideal of optimising the EU's asylum policy. His guiding concern was, unmistakably, the creation of an area of freedom, security and justice. He has taken very seriously the task enshrined in the Treaty of Amsterdam. I only hope that we will all do likewise. I think it right to speak at length about the Member States' responsibility in receiving applications for asylum and about which Member State should process them. All this not only benefits the EU's citizens, but also the refugees, who then know exactly where they stand. The increased threat of terror and the general rise in movements of refugees worldwide mean that we must at last give people a clear picture of what possibilities there are for them in the European Union. It is therefore right that we should give careful thought in this draft Regulation to what is meant by families joining their head, and make this quite clear. It is also very much the right thing to help bring families together, and it is important that this should be done. Both these things contribute to a coherent policy on asylum. We want every State to have the right to act in accordance with its national legislation, but this is not meant to stop anyone learning from other Member States. We want to share in granting asylum and preventing abuses. Not everything has to be the same from one State to another; we should be learning from one another how to protect refugees and how abuses can be prevented. Another reason for us now to be discussing the apportionment of responsibilities among Member States is that the first candidates for accession will be joining the EU in the foreseeable future. One thing is clear, namely that the EU must, as far as possible, have its policies on internal affairs, asylum, and immigration well in hand before the new members join. We cannot face the new members with an incomplete asylum policy. Much in the accession process will be difficult enough for them. It is now, even before the first new States join us, that we need to create rules across the EU on precisely what Member States' responsibilities are towards refugees. If we manage to get all the Member States to adhere to common rules, our work on this report will have given the project of an enlarged European Union and a common judicial area greater certainty and more success. This proposal for a Council regulation gives us the chance to evaluate our experience of the Dublin Convention and let it have an influence on new legislation. I hope we will all succeed in doing that.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, we have over the last few weeks dealt with a number of matters – including social security measures – with a direct bearing on the transport sector, and those of us in the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism were also of the opinion that all these measures – and I do believe that work time, which is now at last regulated, is an important chapter in the course of completion – only make sense if the Member States have the will, on the one hand, to tighten controls and, on the other, to adjust sanctions accordingly. I am myself from a frontier region and know perfectly well that the word in the sector is currently that whoever best knows the rules of the individual countries can make the most money. The lobby that is active here is neither a lobby for the workers nor a lobby against them – I do not think it has anything to do with Luxembourg's legislation either – nor is it a lobby for or against the employers. At the end of the day, both of them are the losers in the Luxembourg situation, and, indeed, we again reminded the Commission of this in the celebrated van Dam report. Our concern is not with adding more and more directives and piling up ever more detail; what matters to us is that those countries should be ready to tackle this together, so that employers can charge proper prices without suffering from this dumping that is being organised there and the workers can of course work under proper conditions. I declare without equivocation that the lobby that is working against this is in essence a lobby supporting nobody but those who cheat and disregard the rules. To come back to the first report, an HGV driver who is also the owner of his own HGV is always on the fringes of legality if he wants to work and earn a decent living. That is the situation we are living in. This means that we have to consider the developing liberalisation in goods transport by road firstly in economic terms, secondly from the employer's – and also the employee's – standpoint, but always from the same perspective, and I believe we can represent both interests equally.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I too wish to thank Harlem Désir for the quality of this report, which, of course, I fully support. The point that you made just now, Commissioner, on developments within the WTO to my mind shows all the more the need for such a report. I shall use two points to try to illustrate this. The Commission must keep a close eye on the issues of agriculture and intellectual property, so that the current shifts we are seeing within the WTO do not continue indefinitely. The dice have been and remain loaded against the weakest, either the poorest countries or the most endangered social categories in our own countries, because the WTO is a body that is neither transparent nor democratic. Let us take the example of the Marrakech Agreements on agriculture. They guarantee neither self-sufficiency with regard to food supply nor the right to protect biodiversity for the southern countries. They prevent the specific nature of small-scale farming in Europe from being taken into consideration, with all its quality, social and environmental aspects. There is a danger that, in the near future, they may ban small farmers from sowing the seeds that they have themselves produced. The Commission must exert pressure to change this, to have an in-depth review of the Trips agreement drawn up so that it is fully compatible with the Rio convention on biodiversity and the Cartagena protocol on biosecurity, as the African group within the WTO is calling for. This will enable us to preserve the biological heritage of the developing countries and the traditional skills in the south as well as the north. Furthermore, the patenting of living organisms must be prohibited, because these are the heritage of all humanity and cannot and must not be hijacked by private interests that want to turn life into a commodity. I hope, Commissioner, that you will convey this message.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, I would also like to draw the attention of the Portuguese Presidency to the fact that the aim of Article 8 of our resolution is, from within the European Parliament, to make a positive contribution to resolving the running conflict with Austria. Needless to say, we are addressing you personally in your role of Portuguese Presidency. We want at all costs to avoid this becoming an EU-wide issue or its becoming a formal item on the agenda. But we hope that you, in a creative manner and on an informal basis, will manage to find ways to talk about this at Feira. My group chairman has made reference to the situation in Denmark, namely the euro referendum. Let us also look at the possible consequences if your efforts were not to lead to solutions. In my opinion, we will need to establish in time within the European Union that Feira has been a historic opportunity to solve this issue. I am therefore urging you to also assess the actions of the Austrian Government and to look for creative solutions in order to break the deadlock. Mr President, many have already pointed to the need for enlargement and the fear that has swept countries in Central and Eastern Europe that, with regard to the IGC, too little progress is being made and that, along with this, the chance for rapid enlargement will pass. I would advise you to let the political will prevail in Feira too in order to let the enlargement go ahead. Finally, Mr President, good governance is all well and good in theory, but let us also look at what is happening in practice. If the Kosovo agency in Thessaloniki is still caught up in so much red-tape that funding cannot be made available, then this is extremely serious. I would also call on the Portuguese Presidency to find a solution to this.

Political group: PPE-DE
First of all I would like to express my satisfaction with the report by Mr Markov supporting the Commission proposal of October 2001 for a new regulation on road transport. This report includes in particular the improvements made by the new regulation to the current situation, with the dual objective of increasing road safety and improving working conditions for drivers. Measures such as removing the possibility of dividing breaks, extending scope, increasing penalties for infringing the regulation, which are measures that appeared in the Commission proposal and are reiterated in the report, represent important milestones. The Markov report reinforces the regulation further, for example, by opposing the creation of a flexible week through the introduction of a limit on working time, by setting a fixed driving time or encouraging the participation of the social partners. I would particularly like to highlight the importance of the measure aimed at extending the scope of the regulation to all lorry drivers operating within European territory, whether or not they are EU nationals. This measure might consequently considerably reduce social dumping while encouraging third countries to strengthen their national legislation to improve working conditions for their drivers. (Explanation of vote abbreviated in accordance with Rule 137(1) of the Rules of Procedure)

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, following the inaugural address, today work begins for those of us who are new Members in the European Parliament. We Hungarians have been living at the heart of Europe for thousands of years, and over the centuries we have often had to fight to protect Europe’s freedom and faith. If our fight for freedom in 1956 had not been crushed by the Soviet tanks and the Hungarian servants of the dictatorship, then representatives of our country would have been sitting there in Rome, amongst the founders of today’s Union. Then we Hungarians too would have taken part in the construction work based on security, freedom and wellbeing that we want to strengthen and renew now with the Constitutional Agreement. Today’s great enterprise of the reunited Europe, the Constitution, can only be successful and long-lasting if it is based on firm foundations. What are these foundations? Firstly: the equal rights of the States that form the Union. We Hungarians have often enough been in a subordinate position, deprived of our rights, and that is why we are particularly sensitive to any violation of equality of rights. What is needed today is not a two-speed Europe, but the rapid and complete removal of the remaining discriminations. Secondly: lasting union can only be based on strong self-identity. Reference to Christian roots would be the acknowledgement of the spiritual source of our freedom and pluralism today. Without Christianity, Europe would only have a brain, but its heart would be missing. The Christian humanist tradition will keep us together and it will not segregate us. The culture of love born from Christianity is manifested in Beethoven’s Ode to Joy as well. During the years of the twentieth century when Europe was torn apart, behind the Iron Curtain, faith and the church represented for us the institutional bond to the idea of Europe. Thirdly: Europe must be a union of unions, a system whereby the unions strengthen and build on each other. For us Hungarians, because of Trianon, the injustice of the Treaty of Trianon, it is increasingly important to have the rights of minorities represented in the principles of the Constitution. Ladies and gentlemen, we must not forget; we have a responsibility to our forefathers and our children alike to fight against the bloody dictatorships of the twentieth century. When we are preparing the reunited, revitalised European Constitution, please bear in mind the words of the Hungarian poet, Attila József: ‘Our job is to finally sort out our mutual business, and it is not a small job.’

Political group: PPE-DE
Speaking on behalf of Conservatives in the European Parliament, we underline our commitment to the protection of the European Communities’ financial interests. We would like to see the convention and the two protocols on this issue signed by all Member States as soon as possible. We believe that there should be close cooperation between Member States to ensure that this objective is achieved. But we do not support the concept of a uniform framework of criminal law to protect EU financial interests or the setting up of a European Public Prosecutor’s Office. We have therefore today voted against the report by Mrs Theato.

Political group: PPE-DE
I am worried by the appearance of this profitable but repulsive phenomenon, which threatens the physical integrity of individuals. It has become a privileged area of activity of organised networks that exploit the discrepancies and loopholes in the legal systems of the Member States, at the expense of the most vulnerable groups, such as children the number of abductions taking place in Brazil and Guatemala is shocking and those living in extreme poverty. Action at European level has become even more urgent in view of enlargement, which will be upon us in 2004, since there is a potential risk of profitable trade routes opening up, particularly to and from Hungary and the Czech Republic. What is needed is an integrated Community approach, harmonised definitions of the offences linked to the traffic in human organs and tissues, and the sanctions applicable. It is important that an element of extraterritoriality should be introduced, to prevent individuals from seeking to purchase organs illegally from outside the Union’s territory. We must address the underlying causes of this criminality: the severe shortage of organs available for transplant, which is due in no small part to a lack of public information. Various surveys show that a large majority of citizens say they would be willing to donate their organs after death, but only a small minority formally express their consent.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, while dealing with the 2003 Budget, the Committee on Budgets discussed Euro-News – the television channel that concentrates its coverage on European affairs – and did so in very great depth. Do you believe that Euro-News might be a means of disseminating European values and discussions throughout the world?

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, I would like to correct a small error that has slipped through into the text that we voted on in committee. Chapter 1, paragraph 3, line 4 states: ‘agrees with the Commission's position that the general guidelines 2003-2005 remain valid...’. In Parliament we are, however, as legislators, not obliged to say that we are in agreement with the Commission, but obliged to say what we ourselves want, as a Parliament. With the agreement of all the political groups, I propose the following oral amendment: ‘the general guidelines 2003-2005 remain valid but must be focused even more on boosting economic growth resulting in job creation and productivity growth’. (The President established that there were no objections to the oral amendment) (Parliament adopted the resolution) *** President. That concludes the vote.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, may I say that Mr Staes has done an excellent job in his report. May I also point out to everyone that the Balkans are a separate area of Europe, both geographically and from the point of view of their customs and their way of thinking. So we need to study every incident from every possible angle if we are to be efficient both in our criticism and in the measures which we take. What it comes down to, as Mr Staes has said and done, is going and seeing for yourself. From where we stand, we cannot see what is happening in these particular regions, which are pretty much a law unto themselves. We cannot monitor what is going on from behind a desk. We cannot understand the Balkan way of thinking from letters, faxes and e-mails. What we need to do is to get close to them, and we need to get close to them not just by expressing an interest which, it goes without saying, is manifest on all sides; we need to get close to them in practice, both physically and geographically, but mainly by learning about their history and what makes them tick. Everything that has happened, the comments made by the auditors and the Commission, demonstrate that something that is good can always be replaced by something that is better and that something that is better can always be made better still. That is the direction we are all pulling in. I am certain that the interest evinced by us and the critical spirit which exists cannot but lead in the right direction and, if you like, we can take the results of the practices applied to this sort of cofinancing and adapt them in other directions. The European Agency for Reconstruction is now up and running in Thessaloniki and Pristina. It has attracted a great deal of criticism, but we cannot presume that Sarajevo is the same thing as Pristina and we need to make that clear, which is precisely why I referred to different ways of thinking, customs and situations which need to be borne in mind. Many honourable Members – and to some extent they are right – said that the agency in Thessaloniki should be decentralised and should move to Pristina. Many of us categorically opposed this as out of the question. We have been proven right in keeping the agency in Thessaloniki because if we had moved the Thessaloniki agency to Pristina, Yugoslavia would now be unable to obtain funding from the European Agency for Reconstruction because it would have been impossible for a Serb to go to Pristina and claim so much as a single euro. Which is why I repeat that criticism is a good thing, but everything we do must be adapted to the circumstances, the needs and the peculiarities of each region.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, Parliament has expressed itself clearly on this matter and we should not vote twice on the same question. I draw your attention to this fact, because it is a principle which we have always respected. The Presidency’s present behaviour is absolutely unacceptable. (Applause)

Political group: PSE
The 2001 budget gave rise to a fair amount of indignation among the members of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, the main reason being that 50% of the PRINCE information campaign was entered in the reserve. This decision would have prevented us from running the information campaign on the introduction of the euro in the year which matters, i.e. in 2001, at a time when uncertainty due to the fall in the value of the euro against the dollar and the need for information on the introduction of coins in 2002 are at their height. The Committee on Budgets decided during the last few days to propose to Parliament that the 50% be removed from the reserve and allocated to these lines. Our warmest thanks therefore to the members of the Committee on Budgets. The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs is satisfied and the Commission has the necessary planning security.

Political group: PSE
Madam, I would just like to mention that my name is not included in the list of those present. I was present yesterday and I forgot to sign in.

Political group: GUE-NGL