GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Mr President, I am sure that it is clear to everyone that the Lisbon process is not yet finished. I think that there are two reasons for this. The first is to do with Lisbon itself. Back then, we took – as we, particularly, do now – as our starting point scenarios based on excessively high growth rates. I think that too many people think that growth is something that you can simply write in a book and it just happens. It does not. Instead, as Mr van Velzen pointed out, you then have to take hundreds of measures to promote this growth, and that cannot be done by means of rhetoric alone. Secondly, of course, all kinds of promises were made, and they have not been kept. This has also been pointed out enough times. What, however, can we do about it now? One of the things you spoke about, Mr Prodi, was the takeover bids directive. That is one example that I would like to give. There is a great deal of talk about employment effects. In the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, we have been looking into the probable employment effects of this takeover bids directive. They are negative. The Commission itself did not look into that. I would also like to see some more employment impact assessment, therefore, not only in the field of social measures – which is logical – but also with regard to other measures, in particular financial measures. Things often do not turn out as one would think. Another point I would draw attention to is the figures. In the Commission’s answer to a question I asked, it admitted that the European growth figures cannot be compared favourably with those for the United States, presumably because the US growth figures should always be taken with a pinch of salt. It makes sense to me that we not only look at the US or China, but that we at all events use good figures and not go by incorrect data. Finally, a good deal has been said about cooperation in the field of universities. I think that that is very important. I think that a lot more can be done without us encroaching on the sovereignty of the Member States in this respect. I should like to put one question to the Presidency, however. How is it possible, if we are busy working on the universities, that, in Greece, the state universities still enjoy a monopoly, so that thousands of Greek students are studying in the USA and not in other European countries? Can an end not be put to this? I know that this is a Greek responsibility, but perhaps some thought could be given to it during your Presidency.

Political group: PPE-DE
Thank you, Mr President. Ladies and gentlemen, I would first like to thank Commissioner Verheugen for his constructive and very close cooperation over the years. The Czech Republic’s successes over the last few years are beyond dispute. There are still deficits in some areas, however, on standards in food-processing establishments, for example. Our consumers need have no fear, however; nothing that fails to meet our standards will be allowed in the EU internal market. Another problem that has increasingly been brought to my attention recently is the suspected trafficking in human beings and in particular children at the German-Czech border. The Czech Government should be encouraging victim support programmes here. There is also a need for training programmes for the police and border guards to increase awareness of the issue of people trafficking and there should be greater cross-border cooperation on the basis of INTERREG. So far as the plans for barrages on the upper reaches of the Elbe are concerned, I have managed to persuade the EU Commission that an environmental impact assessment for this project is absolutely essential and that intermodal alternatives must be worked out. I live in the Elbe valley in Saxony, which was flooded in summer 2002, and I know what I am talking about. Finally, I want to talk about the Czech parliament’s intention of honouring the former Czechoslovak President Edvard Beneš. When we have spent years dealing with the matter of the Beneš decrees here in Parliament and I found a compromise formula that was adopted by an overwhelming majority of the plenum in April last year, I find it insensitive and provocative of the Czechs now, just before the country is to join the EU, to be passing a law that not only evokes the past but actually honours it. I do not want anyone who supports this law joining my Group in the future.

Political group: PPE-DE
Madam President, I do not think that anyone here will deny that the Doha Summit was an important political event, both for the European Union and for the whole world. I believe that it is equally important to carefully analyse the outcome of the summit and the decisions that were taken there. Rather than running the risk of adopting a superficial position, Parliament can simply publish a few brief considerations. However, I think that it is too early to carry out a serious political assessment, which is in fact what is expected of a parliament. I believe that we must wait and not vote for a resolution this week.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, firstly, I would like to congratulate the Commission on the proposal it has put forward, mainly because it will simplify the COM and will give security and stability to the sector, and also the rapporteur, because he has been able to reconcile the various political sensitivities in this House, sparing no effort to achieve this. I would ask the Commission to listen to the political message from this Parliament, which is asking for an increase in the premium. This premium is much needed, because it has remained unaltered since 1994; in fact, it has stagnated. This is the reason why this is one of the sectors that receives the least aid and is the most discriminated against within the COM at the present time. I think that the proposal from the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development is reasonable. However, we will not give our support to amendments put forward a posteriori, because we think that some, such as those put forward by Mr Mulder, should be dealt with in another context, although, it must be said, we are not against what he is saying. Others run counter to what has already been discussed and on which consensus has been reached in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and would, consequently, blur the political message of this Parliament. I would ask the Commission, in its debate with Council, to make the necessary effort to give the sector what it needs. Given that it has already made such an effort when putting forward the proposal, by simplifying the premiums, on the subject of the single premium, and on the possibilities of the Member States managing these premiums, it should make a reasonable budgetary effort – which the Committee on Budgets is not against – so that the objective the sector considers necessary can be achieved.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, I am very pleased that this measure on the labelling and identification of beef has been approved, but I hope that the citizens, those poor souls, are labelled too, particularly the pensioners. I would like it to be known when they were born and what they are like, given that – and this is something I often notice – they are considered as numbers. Yes, bureaucracy views elderly citizens who want their pensions as numbers – I would remind you that I am the representative of the Pensioners’ Party and I have seen this many times – which is why I hope that the photographs of these citizens will be put onto documents and that our citizens will be labelled and considered to be at least equal to livestock.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of this Convention, a text which recognises the child as an individual in its own right, by giving it its own rights (the right to life, the right to identity and to a family, the right of expression and the right to be fed and educated) it is nevertheless still true that on our continent every thirty seconds, a child is abused, raped or beaten up, is indoctrinated, and is the victim of inadequate policies, changes in family and financial circumstances, a victim too of the fact that we are not applying this international Convention. It is therefore our duty, at the end of the century to ask ourselves why there are millions of children who are forced into prostitution, who kill themselves, who take drugs, and as our continent is only just beginning to discover the terrible effects of paedophilia, to which we have closed our eyes for such a long time, we must ask ourselves why, in our countries which are developed in terms of democracy and economics, which proudly celebrate the Declaration on Human Rights every year, these rights are flouted when the most vulnerable in our society, that is children, are concerned. With this in mind, Commissioner, we hope that our children will become much more visible. During the last Parliamentary term, I tabled a report on behalf of Parliament on the protection of children and the family in which I asked for a visible budget for our children and for the creation, within the Commission, of a special unit responsible for protecting children and the family. In it I also highlighted the need to bring together, at our own behest, an extraordinary European Council on the future of policies on the family and on protecting children in the Union and to present an annual report to Parliament comparing legislation on this issue in our respective countries. Finally, we hope, and I too hope, like many of my fellow MEPs, that we can contemplate, within the framework of the IGC, the introduction of an indisputable legal basis for actions favouring children and the family. Whereas in 2001 a report will be made at the UN of the first World Summit on Children, I suggest that within our own Parliament, we create a European Children’s Parliament, established together with them, to celebrate this European World Summit in 2001.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I can only express my hearty congratulations to Mr Salafranca on the thorough work he has done. It is true that to give real substance to all that was decided in Rio de Janeiro by the first Summit between Heads of State and Government of the European Union, Latin America and the Caribbean, the solemn declarations must be made concrete by transforming them into facts, strategies and opportunities that can give new life to the dialogue between the European Union and Latin America. We should not be surprised, then, that the Salafranca report states firmly that the only way the European Union can establish a genuine, bi-regional strategic partnership is to launch a new joint strategy with force and determination, and that the best time to do so may be precisely at the Madrid Summit in May 2002. It is right, therefore, to lay the foundations straight away and to find the simplest instruments that can be most readily understood by the citizens of both the European Union and South America. The creation of a single EU-Latin American Transatlantic Assembly will be most welcome; it must have the broadest remit, including, particularly, the fight against poverty and social exclusion, and the fight against drugs and organised crime, and it must also focus greatly on the basic sector of education, culture and free trade which, as the previous speaker pointed out, must come about without generating inequalities. The strategy, as the rapporteur suggests, could be one of a single bi-regional solidarity fund, clearly identified and thus more easily controlled. But apart from the technical financial instruments, what is fundamental is that there should be clear political will, that we should take on a greater burden, that the Union can and must commit itself to implementing a strong development cooperation policy. The historical, cultural and blood ties that link so many Europeans to Latin America mean that whenever one of us is in Latin America, Mr President, we feel at home. These ties impose a moral as well as a political obligation on us to continue to uphold with renewed vigour the specific nature of Europe’s role, which is based on the strength of those values that have been at the root of our project for integration. It is also for these reasons that, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party, I confirm our full support for this report.

Political group: ELDR
I am most grateful to the Commissioner for such accurate and detailed information. Mr President, just to set a precedent, I shall not take up a position. I just have two questions to put to the Commissioner: you said that at times we exceed the limit values. Have you been notified of any measures taken since the limit values were exceeded? Secondly, the budget of the Cohesion Fund and the budget for the third Community Support Framework include investments; have you discussed investments to set up the measuring networks provided for in Community legislation throughout Greece and not just in Athens?

Political group: GUE-NGL
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, many people tend to refer to certain events, in which they participate as they are happening, as historic or unique, because that is how they appraise the period in question. As time goes by, however, developments themselves, history itself, finalises things, and events are placed in their real proportion when developments themselves confirm them or cancel them. I believe, however, that history will not gainsay us and will confirm the political and historic values of this promising step of recent enlargement by Europe. Often we debate the future in terms of ideologies which have either collapsed or are outdated, resulting in our engaging in useless nostalgia. United Europe, however, must be constructed on the basis of a forward-looking perception, with positive prospects, supported on principles of humanitarianism, freedom, diversity, pluralism and peace. A few years ago, our current partners were our neighbours, with all the peculiarities and the historic and political burden of a different era. Today we are acquiring new neighbours, with a positive perception, with an expectation of hope towards the European Union on the part of citizens and politicians alike. The integration of the ten countries into the Union does not mean that all the individual problems have automatically been resolved. There are mild problems, cross-border problems, minority problems and so on, but they have all launched their solutions within the favourable environment. These ten countries bring great potential. The Baltic States and the former central and eastern European countries to the other Europe, Malta to Africa and the Mediterranean and Cyprus to the eastern Mediterranean and beyond. In a few years' time we expect Bulgaria, Romania and, later, Croatia. The same applies to Turkey which, I hope, will quickly adapt to what are European values. As for our beloved, long-suffering Cyprus, the green and golden leaf tossed into the sea, the island of Aphrodite, we all welcome it, as I do, as a Greek. I hope, as does everyone else who supported the Annan plan, as does the European Parliament, that it will help to bring about positive developments for the reunification of the island. Ladies and gentlemen, as rapporteur for Lithuania, welcome! The same to Malta, for which I acted as shadow rapporteur. Welcome to you all, all ten of you. Once again, as a Greek, welcome dear Cyprus.

Political group: PSE
Mrs Fourtou’s report is valuable because it provides an important gloss on the Commission’s green paper ‘Combating counterfeiting and piracy in the single market’. This document clearly sets out the importance of intellectual property in the contemporary world and the damage that theft of that property can do. While many people quite rightly consider that burglary is wrong, there is not somehow the same feeling about, for example, the illegal taking and using of intellectual property, for example, pirated CDs or using Napster to get other people’s music off the Internet. But, of course, there is no fundamental difference between the two. In some ways the most interesting challenge posed by these relatively new forms of crime are the means of countering them. Clearly, in any pan-national single market, measures cannot be confined to a single Member State’s jurisdiction but it does not automatically follow that the correct answer is European-wide harmonisation of penalties, criminal law and procedures. There is undoubtedly an overriding requirement for coordination and a single strategy to deal with the counterfeiters and pirates, but the principles of mutual recognition have not, in my view, been given the prominence I would like to have seen in the conclusions to the report. This tends to emphasise the need to harmonise more than is appropriate or necessary in the circumstances. However, having said that, it is important for the European Union’s judicial area to have a coherent and comprehensive framework for dealing with the problems of counterfeiting and piracy which is widely carried out both within and without the Union by increasingly determined and technologically sophisticated criminals. We are often glibly told, rightly in fact I believe, that we are moving into a knowledge-based society. We therefore cannot allow that knowledge to be stolen from those to whom it belongs as doing that will undermine the economic base of the society. If that happens, we allow it to happen at our peril.

Political group: PPE-DE
This report enables us to go into greater depth on the initial proposals for the revision of Directive 76/207/EEC on ensuring equal treatment for men and women as regards access to employment, vocational training and promotion, and working conditions, extending its scope to cover all aspects of equality concerning the professional life of women, in an attempt to make a positive contribution to changing the countless forms of discrimination that still remain in the world of employment. During the preparatory debate, we made our contributions, specifically by tabling amendments arising from working meetings in Portugal with union activists in sectors in which women make up a large part of the workforce, such as commerce and services, textile industries, the garment and shoe-making industries and the electrical and electronic components sectors. Not all of our proposals were adopted but something of their spirit is implicit in the report, particularly in terms of the need to prevent any discrimination against female workers on the grounds of pregnancy and maternity leave, in terms of the need to adopt the necessary measures for reconciling family and working life and in terms of greater restrictions on opportunities for any discrimination in access to employment. The report also contains a whole raft of positive amendments in the field of fighting sexual harassment in the workplace and of protecting measures for prevention and for positive action for protecting equality while discrimination continues to exist. This is why we have voted in favour of the report.

Political group: GUE-NGL
I want to thank the Council for its detailed answer. In an ordinary democracy it is, of course, the rule that all decisions concerning new laws are made publicly in a parliament and that the debates too are held in public. The curious situation in the Council of Ministers is that the public only has access to certain debates. There is therefore an obvious risk of meetings being closed in cases where more controversial subjects are being dealt with. I therefore wonder whether the French Presidency, given its high level of ambition, will hold any entire meetings in public, that is to say ministerial meetings which, from beginning to end, with all the debates and all the decision-making, take place in public, without the doors being closed for any part of them.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, I would like to ask for the vote on the report on the protection of forests to be postponed until the next sitting, because today, for unavoidable reasons, I must leave this Parliament at 5 p.m.

Political group: PPE-DE
In paragraph 8 on Austria of the resolution approved on the Feira European Council, this House has ended up adopting a very hypocritical position which is in total contradiction of all the positions which it has previously taken on this issue. In my opinion, it is not a question of being against the principle of returning relations with Austria to normal. It is a question of the right opportunity and time for this political change to occur. A resolution on the European Council should specify that it is up to the latter to take this political change in hand by taking advantage of its meeting in Feira. However, this is not what the text does. On the contrary, it asks the Portuguese Presidency to do this. Clearly, at this point four days before the European Council, it is now the responsibility of this summit, as a whole and as the highest body of the Union, to take advantage of this historic opportunity to update the EU’s policy on Austria. Giving this task to the Portuguese Presidency is an attempt to place all the responsibility for what may happen on the shoulders of one country which cannot, at the wrong time and on its own, solve a problem which concerns us all. This is not to mention the reasons for this approval which are difficult to understand given the basic policy. After all, what has changed in Austria? Has the government fallen? Fortunately this small part of the text does not invalidate the rest of its content which I regard as positive. Unfortunately it was clearly much more to serve the petty interests of the Portuguese component of the PPE that this group adopted this position than due to the belief in and usefulness of this particular vote.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, the issue we raised in our question has nothing to do with the more general issue of nuclear power plants. We are concerned with a specific nuclear power plant of 1400 MW which Turkey is about to establish for no apparent reason. We greatly fear that it will be used to build nuclear weapons, in the Akkuyu region, 120 kilometres east of Cyprus, in an area renowned for its seismic activity. There, three tectonic plates are adjoined and in 1917 we had an earthquake measuring 7.1 on the Richter scale. Recent studies point to the fact that the Esemis fault is still active and between 1871 and 1975, more than 50 significant earthquakes were recorded, all within 130 kilometres of each other. Not too long ago, about 136 kilometres from there, we had an earthquake in Adana, measuring 6.3 on the Richter scale leaving 140 dead. Another typical example is of course the recent earthquake, and we are all aware of its effects. So, notwithstanding all that, is it or is it not criminal on the part of Turkey to insist on building a station in that area? This is an issue of general importance not only for Turkey where there have been rallies taking place against the plant, but also for the whole of Greece, which is why we need direct intervention to stop this plan from going ahead.

Political group: GUE-NGL