GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
The main aim of this report by the Committee on Industry is to use free trade areas (FTAs) and bilateral agreements as a ‘Trojan horse’ to ensure the liberalisation of world trade under the control of the WTO and the ‘Doha Agenda’, and perhaps even to exceed the ambitions of these by including political aims. We read in the report that ‘...the constraint placed by the need to obtain consensus among WTO members complicates and slows down multilateral negotiations. By moving faster than the global trading system and sharing its goals, FTAs serve as catalysts for change. While FTAs undermine the non-discriminatory principle of multilateralism, as long as they are WTO-compliant and WTO-Plus, they are incentives and complementary models for new global trade initiatives...’, putting the EU forward as a model to follow. What is the point of these words? The report also claims that the EU institutions should have exclusive competence ‘for all areas of trade’, and that ‘QMV and co-decision should apply to all trade matters’, which would clearly make it hard for Portugal to protect its national interests. Hence my vote against the report.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Madam President, I disagree with the Member except for one point on which he is right. When three or four people have been allowed to express an opinion, basic democracy would say that another opinion should be allowed, even if they disagree with this. The representative of a large group cannot be permitted to speak for three minutes while the representative of a small group is refused, even if you disagree with them and even if what this person is going to say is deplorable.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, next Tuesday, in response to an application by the Netherlands which is supported by Italy and Norway, the ECJ will decide on the Patent Directive's compatibility with the Treaty. Today, the European Parliament, through its vote, will decide between the reality and the Directive. The BRCA patents in particular make it clear that the price of medicines is being increased unnecessarily and that monopolies are being created which impede effective diagnosis and therapy and block research into new and useful drugs. The time has come for the Commission – and I call upon the Commissioner present to make a statement on this issue – to put an end to the conflicts surrounding the interpretation of this Directive, either by amending the Directive or adopting guidelines. In my view, the Commission should not bury its head in the sand and say, well, we know that many Member States have problems with this Directive because they do not know how to apply it; we know that the European Patent Office interprets it in a particular way. I therefore urge you to make a statement on this issue. The human body must not be degraded to biological material. Human genes or living organisms or elements thereof must not be subject to patent law. A discovery must not be recast as an invention. We must prevent monopolies on human genes impeding research into new and useful drugs. We cannot stand and watch the early detection of breast cancer falling by the wayside simply because patent rights are to be created for something which is not an invention but, at the very most, a discovery. Action is required not only by the European Parliament – we have, I believe, made it quite clear with this resolution that we are not prepared to stand and watch – but also by the Commission and the Member States.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, while the fire-fighters of Strasbourg were wandering through the Strasbourg fog, trying to catch the – eurosceptic, I am sure – fawns belonging, I believe, to Mr Roger Helmann, the aircraft in which I was travelling circled round and round in the sky above, giving me the time to read and reread the Italian newspapers reporting the statement of the Italian Minister for Economic Affairs, Giulio Tremonti, to the effect that ‘Europe must decide on pensions’. Are we Europeans so powerful, then? Of course, we are unable to stop deer running around in the fog but we have to decide what to do about pensions. I believe that this is a case of the principle of subsidiarity being reversed: when it suits the States, then it is the States that decide; when they need to cut pensions and make pensioners tighten their belts, then it suits them to say that Europe has to make the decision. Do you not think you should do something, Mr President?

Political group: PPE-DE
draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Fisheries. – Mr President, the fisheries sector is in crisis. The common fisheries policy has been an abject failure: the core objectives of the CFP were to save jobs and conserve fish stocks, but thousands of jobs have been destroyed and fish stocks have collapsed. In the name of conservation, our fishermen have been forced to dump two million tonnes of prime dead fish back into the sea every year to comply with the quota scheme. In the name of conservation, our fishermen have suffered tie-ups, lay-offs, emergency closures, decommissioning and plunging incomes. We are struggling now to reform the CFP and to stop the final collapse of the industry in the North Sea and other key sectors. It is therefore of paramount importance that fisheries policy is highlighted. The committee was alarmed that the Convention seemed to attach fisheries policy to agriculture as a mere appendage. For the hundreds of thousands of people who work in the sector throughout the EU, we are not an appendage to agriculture: we are a major sector. Please ensure that our bid for codecision-making powers in the Committee on Fisheries is endorsed. Please also ensure that we can start playing a meaningful role in the future of the industry.

Political group: PPE-DE
I did not vote for the resolution, despite the fact that I am in favour of a charter of fundamental rights, because it contains demands which overshoot the mark and risk causing considerable confusion by formulating the same rights differently and, more importantly, jeopardising the universality of human rights. I do not take the view that this charter should contain enforceable economic and social rights. These are subject to the employment law of the Member States and the autonomy of the social partners. Those who want to overload the cart, for example, with new basic rights in the information, bio-technology and environmental protection areas, are doing little to promote the endearing concept of a Union charter containing subjectively enforceable basic rights. I would much rather see the European Union and, of course, all the Member States, quickly accede to the 1950 Human Rights Convention as opposed to the inevitable dispute regarding the new wording of the fundamental rights of Union citizens. In order to safeguard uniform case law and prevent differing interpretations, case law should continue to be the preserve of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg which, thanks to the quality of its case law on the 1950 Convention over the past 40 years, has provided a dynamic instrument which takes full account of the social, economic and ethical developments within our society. The discrepancies or inconsistencies which might result from various ideologically informed views can be seen in the position of the Committee on Women’s Rights which is calling, for example, for the Charter of Fundamental Rights to contain a clause banning discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation but maintains that family rights as such do not exist. We need to be wary of perhaps well-meant, generous proposals if we want to prevent decision processes in the EU being crippled by a plethora of recourse proceedings which would mean more than doubling the number of judges at the European Court of Justice, and nobody would know where to enforce their basic rights any more or how long they must wait for a judgement.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, on a point of order, I am sure you will be aware of the recent announcement by the UK Electoral Commission that the people of Gibraltar should vote in the South-West of the United Kingdom at the next European Elections, following a decision by the European Court. Will you join with me in welcoming an end to the historic wrong that has denied the people of Gibraltar a voice in Europe? I should like to ask you to write, on behalf of this Parliament, to Mr Peter Caruana, the First Minister of Gibraltar, offering his citizens a warm welcome and congratulating them on their hard-fought campaign to secure their rightful democratic representation in Europe.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, Mr Lange, we are indeed heirs to a fine tradition in this area of European lawmaking. We have laid down rules for cars, motorbikes, ships, and motor-driven saws, and now it is the turn of non-road vehicles. This House is characterised by its continuity, in that you do not have to agree with every word, but every time, we have the same problem. The industry that builds the machine says, ‘We’ll sort it out’. Those who use the machines will of course say, ‘Oh God, we will need to use this for a long time before we can write the investment off.’ All this is understandable, and so I believe that the compromise at which we have arrived is the right one. It is in particular the fact that we are in step with the Americans that means we are on the right track when it comes to doing our bit to reduce distortions in competition. I am quite convinced that the reduction of emission values is more expensive in an area as industrialised as Europe than it is in other countries. Our problem is a simple one; there are more and more machines. They may be getting cleaner, but machines as a whole are becoming more numerous, and so we cannot take as rosy a view of our pollution of the environment with exhaust gases as we might wish. Although I am glad that we have found a way to accommodate the railways to some extent, a degree of harshness is still apparent, so there are two or three amendments with which I am not quite so happy. It is quite clear, though, that if people want, in the long term, to run these large motors – which are not 80 horse-power jobs, but check in at between 600 and 1000 kW, and have a correspondingly massive output – then they will have to put their hands in their pockets to do so; they must realise that they will have to do that in future, and they must make preparations. I believe that we are on the right track. If one thing or another remains to be sorted out, then our injured rapporteur will be able to handle that.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, first of all, a big thank-you is due to Mr Schmid for an outstanding piece of work. I think there are two good reasons for highlighting this work. For one thing, it has been a mammoth task, but I also think that Mr Schmid can justifiably be commended specifically for not having succumbed to what might be referred to as sensationalism. It would have been tempting to do so on this particular issue, but he confined himself to the facts and to what is actually the case. We have, of course, managed to ascertain that ECHELON exists, and this naturally highlights the dilemma arising, on the one hand, from the fact that countries have a legitimate interest in using interception as one means of protecting themselves and their citizens against attacks and terrorism and, on the other, from the fact that the same citizens, as well as companies, have a need for protection against the misuse of precisely this type of surveillance. Moreover, I specifically think that Mr Schmid’s report, which we must adopt today, is forward-looking and contains sound proposals for initiatives that might be taken. I can only highlight a few of these: first and foremost, that the Member States should prepare a code of conduct to ensure the protection of citizens and companies throughout Europe, as required by the Charter of Fundamental Rights. I also think it right to point out that there is a need to reach an understanding, and arrange for an agreement to be prepared, between the EU and the United States so that there might be mutual respect for the protection of citizens and companies. We have a need for international rules in this area that are as tough as is humanly possible. The need for legal and parliamentary supervision of the intelligence services in the Member States is also emphasised. Finally, I think that the fourth important point is that both the EU and the Member States have an obligation to ensure that people are thoroughly informed about the risks of interception and about the ways in which they, as well as companies, might best protect themselves against misuse of the system. I want to say that, with this report, the Member States can no longer put their heads in the sand where this issue is concerned. They can no longer say that it is just something they have read about in the newspapers. There is now a need for countries to take responsibility for protecting their citizens and companies against violations.

Political group: PSE
Commissioner, you said in your answer to Mr Färm that the Member States have a great responsibility in the implementation process with regard to eEurope. The only problem they have, however, is not financing and its rechannelling, but the fact that national authorities as well need to be altogether more active in the implementation of the eEurope initiative. You said today, when dealing with Mr van Velzen’s report, that subscriber line differentiation is, in your opinion, a very important part of the eEurope initiative. Now, however, the telecommunications regulatory bodies in the British Isles, at least, have had huge problems establishing competition in local networks, although last Thursday we received a slightly more positive message from them. How, then, does the Commission intend to persuade national regulatory authorities, too, to take a more active role and intervene in the market if they need to?

Political group: PPE-DE
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, this is not the first time that those who consider themselves the guardians of western culture, those who give the rest of the world lessons in democracy have proven to be the guardians of barbarianism. We see them imposing embargos on Iraq, where they have killed thousands of children. We saw them in Yugoslavia, together with their friends on this side of the Atlantic, killing civilians, flattening infrastructures and destroying the environment. Barbarianism is a fundamental aspect of imperialism. Mistreating any person is a crime. Mistreating prisoners of war is an even more serious violation of international law. And let there be an end to the discussion as to whether or not the detainees in Guantanamo are prisoners of war. If the Americans were waging war on Afghanistan, then they are prisoners of war. If the Americans were not waging war on Afghanistan, then the detainees have simply been kidnapped. And they have been transferred to occupied territory on the island of Cuba on purpose, as a serious provocation to the heroic people of Cuba. The Americans are making no secret of what they are up to with the backing of their friends, and unfortunately some of their friends are here in this Chamber. They want the whole world to know what is in store for anyone who falls into their hands. But, ladies and gentlemen, however terrible their barbarianism, it will not stop the march of history. The people will see to that. IN THE CHAIR: MR PUERTAVice-President

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, despite Commissioner Barnier’s undoubted competence, it is undeniable that one of the most intriguing features of European politics is the persistence of a significant level of under-execution of the Structural Funds, as measured by the execution rate for payment appropriations. This becomes stranger still in view of the fact that the first objective of structural policy is the sustainable development of the Union. It is quite true that the persistence of high and rising levels of outstanding financial commitments does not necessarily mean that none of the final objectives of cohesion policy can ever be reached. In any case, those objectives must be reached – and fast – so that the lion’s share, at least, of the outstanding commitments does not become lost through the bureaucracy of the institutions or through the political and administrative incompetence of the governments of the Member States. Moreover, the blame can and should be shared by the two decision-making tiers. That is a logical consequence of the disparities in the breakdown of executions between the countries of the Union, and between the different Structural Funds. Rendering regional policy and Structural Fund management more effective, therefore, depends on the right choices being made at national level, but it also stems from regulations and from the elimination of pointless bureaucratic requirements. The report, moreover, recognises the Commission’s role in introducing simplifying measures, but also argues that those measures are inadequate and proposes, quite rightly, that they be revised. Furthermore, cohesion policy is on the agenda and the tabling of the Sapir report means that its reevaluation cannot be avoided. Without wanting to pre-empt a separate political debate at this stage, it is important to emphasise that the fastest and easiest way to render political policies superfluous is to make them incomprehensible and impracticable in advance by administering the prescribed dose of bureaucracy and red tape. The Commission, therefore, must urgently enhance and emphasise its strategic function in defining priorities, leaving the responsibility for implementing and managing funds to the Member States. Hence I welcome Mr Pittella’s report, acknowledge its timeliness and support its proposals.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, the report by our colleague Mr Herzog is excellent, and the amendments tabled by our group only add to it. However, the amendments tabled by the Group of the European People’s Party and the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party really destroy it, in that they delete at least ten articles and paragraphs from it. I am therefore surprised, as in a way it is the whole human aspect of this report that is deleted by those amendments. You are aware that the Treaty establishes that aid provided by Germany to regions of East Germany is in line with the single market. Our colleague quite rightly states that this aid could be allocated to regions of the candidate countries. But there is just deletion and more deletion, and given the extent to which the declared its support for the social market economy in Estoril, I must admit that I do not understand.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is actually very simple, and the Commissioner alluded to this a moment ago. I had tabled an amendment on behalf of my group, whereby I also wanted the information on official controls to be received by the European Parliament. I should like to expand on that by an oral amendment. Not only do I want the information to reach the competent authorities and the European Parliament, as stated in my amendment, I also want the Member States to have this information. If we adopt this oral amendment, the Commission will be willing to adopt the entire amendment, and I believe I can deliver a positive opinion of vote on this. (Parliament accepted the oral amendment) (The President declared the common position approved as amended) *** Report (A5-0115/2001) by Mr Robert Evans, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, on the Council common position for adopting a European Parliament and Council Recommendation on mobility within the Community for students, persons undergoing training, young volunteers, teachers and trainers (13258/1/2000 – C5-0029/2001 – 2000/0021(COD)) Before the vote:

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we have had a very in-depth discussion of this subject today. I have gradually been sensing that this debate has made it clearer and clearer how justified the Group of the and the was in taking the initiative to table this motion, and how important that was. There are 89 days to go until the euro notes and coins come into circulation, and on top of that challenge we are living in very uncertain times. At the same time there have been reactions in some governments around making the Stability and Growth Pact an issue. We have already heard the names of certain people in some governments who have not done their homework properly when it comes to the Stability and Growth Pact. For that reason it is particularly important in these uncertain times and with 89 days to go before the euro comes in, to convey a sense of clarity and calm to the markets and also to consumers. Europe's Stability and Growth Pact will not be shaken. That is why it is necessary to counter the idea that weakening the Stability and Growth Pact is a way of acting to prevent a recession. It is simply not true that inflation can create jobs. And it is not true that the Stability and Growth Pact did not allow enough leeway for hard times. The Member States that have the greatest leeway are the ones that have done most of their homework. So I can only urge you not to play with fire. It is irresponsible to add to uncertainty at a time when things are already uncertain, and the Stability Pact is a requirement for the stability of the euro.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the White Paper on food safety is the Commission's response to the public's increased sensitivity in this area. The limited quantity of food we still allow ourselves must first and foremost be healthy, taste good and be produced in an environmentally sound way in consumers' eyes. There are many aspects that need to be addressed in talking about food safety and if we want to guarantee it. There are already very many organisations and institutions, not to mention associations and initiatives, concerned with food safety. In the European single market, which implies free trade and movement of goods, we are increasingly faced with the issue of legislative jurisdiction and responsibility for controls in this area, which is so important for the European public. The Commission is now proposing the creation of a European Food Safety Agency. I welcome this proposal, but at the same time I have certain questions about the powers, remit and influence of a European authority. These are the same questions that we considered in committee. I would therefore like to compliment Mr Bowis on his excellent and well-balanced report, in which he has brought together a wide variety of ideas. The Agency's responsibility should be for risk assessment. It should carry out assessments and work with bodies in the Member States. Transparency is particularly important, and is required by the public. They want to be kept informed. That is why the Agency has to ensure that the public has easily accessible and understandable information. The Agency is intended to work closely with existing institutions, but that also means that information, statistics and data should also be mutually accessible. Other people's experience and findings can be pooled with our own, and findings can be assessed at pan-European level. We do not want everyone reinventing the wheel. But we can also learn from each other's experience here. That is how I see the future role of a Food Safety Agency.

Political group: PPE-DE