GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Mr President, I should like to begin by saying how delighted I am that Parliament has reached a consensus on Euro-Mediterranean policy. It has done so by unanimously endorsing the policy summarised clearly and positively in Mr Esteve’s report. At the same time, I am bound to say not just how disappointed but bitter I feel. I imagine there must by now be broad agreement that this Euro-Mediterranean process is like a game of snakes and ladders in which we have just gone down a very long snake and lost all the ground gained. As regards the economic and social aspects, there is a clear tendency to estrangement and breakdown of the relationship between the European Union and our Mediterranean partners. There is shared responsibility here, but also purely European responsibility. Above all, however, it is in the political sphere that the situation arising as a result of the dreadful events in the Middle East means at least that Euro-Mediterranean relations are exceedingly delicate, if not that the whole process is in danger. I should like to take this opportunity to say that the Valencia Ministers’ meeting will undoubtedly prove a valuable opportunity to bring Israeli and Palestinian representatives together round a table. Nonetheless, attendance by the Palestinian Authority must be a condition sine qua non for the meeting to be held. It should be remembered that President Arafat himself was present at the previous meeting. The European Union could never be party to the mockery of bringing together Euro-Mediterranean countries whilst the Palestinian Authority’s seat remained empty.

Political group: PSE
It is with great satisfaction that I welcome this report on the pre-accession strategy for Cyprus and Malta, whose accession is vital to the future of the European Union in the Mediterranean. The aim of this proposal for a regulation is to set up the first programme to implement the strategy for Cyprus and Malta, starting in the year 2000 and lasting for five years (2000-2004). The proposal therefore aims to facilitate harmonisation of their legislation with the acquis communautaire and the correct application of the acquis communautaire. This new move follows on from the step taken at the Helsinki European Council last December, when it was decided that Malta had made sufficient progress to warrant opening bilateral conferences in February 2000, i.e. by the end of this month, in order to commence negotiations on the conditions of accession to the Union and the adjustments required. As far as Cyprus is concerned, although the Council stated that a political settlement would facilitate the accession of Cyprus to the European Union. It also stated that its decision on accession would be made without the above being a precondition, which I welcome. I have, in fact, always thought that insisting on a settlement of the present situation, in which one-third of this republic’s territory is occupied by Turkey, before starting negotiations with Cyprus was quite unfair. On a more general note, it is true that the socio-economic situation in these two countries is far better than in other candidate countries. However, they have received technical assistance and financial aid from the European Union in order to transpose the acquis communautaire. Until 1999, this technical assistance and financial aid was provided under the fourth financial protocols (B7-4011). Both countries also qualify for financial aid under the MEDA programme (B7-4012). During the first and second readings of the 2000 budget, the European Parliament stressed that the new ‘pre-accession’ heading (B7-0), proposed by the Commission in the preliminary draft budget, should not be limited to the candidate countries of Central and Eastern Europe and should also be extended to Malta and Cyprus. However, because of the Council’s refusal to negotiate a review of the ceiling set for heading 7 (pre-accession) in the Financial Perspectives, the European Parliament agreed, by way of exception, and I stress that it was by way of exception, that this expenditure should be financed under heading 4 (external action) of the Financial Perspectives for the year 2000. At the same time, the European Parliament created a new heading: ‘pre-accession strategy for Mediterranean countries’ (B7-04), under which two new articles were created for the pre-accession strategy for Malta and Cyprus pending the Commission’s presentation, following the Helsinki European Council, of the necessary legal bases and a review of the ceiling for heading 7 of the Financial Perspectives. This proposal for a regulation is supposed to be one of these legal bases!

Political group: PSE
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as all those who have spoken before me have already said, Mr Nicholson really has done an excellent job, succeeding in convincing a large part – if not all – of the Commission of the validity of the proposals for compromise amendments he has put forward, which are very appropriate and necessary. Commissioner, we fully agree with the Commission that the measure is appropriate and necessary; previous speakers have already explained why. We need to give consumers and air transport users increasing guarantees, and we need, as has been said, gradually to achieve a situation where the sector is regulated and rights are protected in this field, in order to provide the same possibility of development and to restore consumer confidence. It is, however, true, Commissioner – and I regret to say that this does not appear to be a new scenario – that, although you followed a sound, effective line with regard to air transport, the competent services of the Commission then took – and not for the first time – a rather too rigid approach when it came to specifics. As you are quite aware, I am the rapporteur for the measure on overbooking, with regard to which we encountered the same rigidity as we are experiencing today in the field of insurance. What do I mean by rigidity? I mean an approach that is a little oversimplistic, which does not, indeed, take into account the two fundamental factors already mentioned. Firstly, there are different kinds of air transport: the major airlines are one thing but the regional airlines are another, and private operators – as in this case – are quite another. The second factor which is being overlooked is that this is a difficult time for the sector, not so much because of economic trends – September 11, the Middle East, the war in Iraq and now SARS which, as you know, Commissioner, has already done twice as much damage to the air traffic sector as Iraq – as the fact that, in the face of these economic difficulties, while US airlines are receiving what is practically full, total support from the US Government, we, on the other hand, are leaving most of our airlines on their own to cope with the demands we are making of them and the changes we are asking them to make, however necessary these requests may be. To sum up, then, it was necessary for a good measure to be proposed, but I believe that, on this occasion too, without Parliament’s astute contribution, the good end result we can adopt and endorse today might not have been achieved. IN THE CHAIR: MR ONESTAVice-President

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, although this Parliament is bringing southern Africa back to our agenda and particularly Mozambique, one of the poorest countries in the world, which, as we know, was devastated exactly a year ago by a huge natural disaster. As you know, Mozambique is situated in one of the hottest and most sensitive spots on the African continent, where any spark may trigger off another war with unimaginable consequences. The international community must exercise its right of democratic vigilance, not in order to interfere in the internal affairs of an independent country but as a precautionary and preventative political procedure. Therefore, this joint resolution, which is objective, clear, shows genuine concern and is not demagogic, has the earnest support of my political group; sharing an economic, social and political diagnosis in which its concerns are well-founded, it does not allow any other interpretation of its text that may divide the Mozambican people. This Parliament agrees not to forget any factor that may jeopardise the peace and the democratic future of Mozambique. However, responsibly, it does not side with any factions seeking power or position; instead it sides with the Mozambicans and their right to a better life. With time we all learn something and, in this exercise of political common sense, Parliament forgets nothing but remembers everything, and believes that those responsible in Mozambique will read and understand the essence of this resolution, in the certainty that we remain ready and willing to help them without any paternalism of any kind. This resolution, ladies and gentlemen, is to be read, not misread, for that would be a perversion of the genuine concerns to uphold essential principles in which it is rooted. The opposite of this would be to encourage violence and threaten the peace which is contrary to the safety and democracy that the Mozambicans are entitled to win for themselves every day.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, once again we are dealing with the forwarding of PNR (Passenger Name Record) data to the United States, but this time in the final phase, since we now have the draft international agreement on the table, which we in this House have called for so many times. I do not believe we can contribute anything new to the fundamental issue, because our positions throughout all these debates have been made sufficiently clear. In the committee I chair, we have had the opportunity to hear the experts. Mr Bolkestein, the Commissioners involved and also the bodies directly affected, such as the air carriers, have appeared on repeated occasions. This is our final political pronouncement on the issue during this legislature. Like my group, I believe it would be irresponsible on our part to leave without resolving a blatant case of legal vacuum and legal uncertainty which arises every time that, when travelling to the United States, airlines transmit data on their passengers to the United States authorities, without any type of guarantee or legal basis to protect the treatment and use of that data. This has now been happening for a year. This is the legal framework we are debating today, with all its defects and the criticisms we have made. On the other hand, nobody can deny that combating terrorism is an absolute priority today and that at the moment, when European society, living in fear of those people who threaten their security and stability, would not understand the absence of cooperation between those countries which are facing up to terrorism. The European Union and the United States share this common objective and it is fundamental, and absolutely urgent and necessary, that we cooperate. Ladies and gentlemen, I do not see this as giving the United States carte blanche, as some would have us believe. It is the solution to a real problem which has affected us since transmissions began more than a year ago. Allow me, Mr President, also to take this opportunity to say that I hope the new Socialist government in Spain – led by Mr Zapatero – defends this agreement in the Council, because I am convinced that the Spanish citizens would prefer to give their personal data to those who need it for these purposes or can obtain it for security reasons, as the United States do, before the people responsible for the massacre on 11 March can carry out another brutal attack, whether it be in my country or in any part of the world. For all of these reasons, ladies and gentlemen, Mr President, we are going to vote against the report by Mrs Boogerd-Quaak.

Political group: PPE-DE
The extent of disclosure of information is not determined by the quantity of unimportant or non-controversial information made available on the Internet. What is at issue is precisely documents, the authors and customers of which are able decide that their content of even their existence is kept secret. We may adopt this proposal, but we are still a long way away from disclosure as it is known in the Netherlands and Scandinavia. The currently proposed form of restricted disclosure could even be a means of systematically protecting documents from priers, which are now hardly accessible to society. Those in favour of the compromise do not seem too keen either, but they still call on everyone to vote for the proposal. Their main arguments are that the outcome without the compromise would be even worse, and that they expect that something better will come up after the 2004 evaluation. Those opposing disclosure have not spoken out in the debate at all, but without such opponents, difficult negotiations behind the scenes would not have been necessary and we would have been able to vote on a better outcome today. Incorrect and hasty preparations have created a situation in which the moderate advocates of disclosure are voting in favour and the radical advocates are being forced to vote against.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, I want to make one fundamental point on the Cunha report. I have some sympathy with the political position that our nationalist colleagues put forward this morning with respect to paragraph 6, but in terms of dealing with it they took the wrong approach. It is not appropriate and we voted not to send the report back to committee. Nor do we support the notion that paragraph 6 is inadmissible. The best approach is to vote on the report and to follow the political logic. I have tabled an amendment which substitutes 'temporary removal of quotas' for the suggestion in paragraph 6 that it should be 'permanent' if Member States do not comply with the regime. If that amendment or anything similar is carried we will be supporting the report. If it is not, then we will be opposing it. Such an amendment will put pressure on governments to obey the law without condemning the principle of relative stability which, as we are all so well aware, has been the basis of the common fisheries policy since 1983. This is the best approach, the one we are going to follow, and we hope that the other political groups will allow the report to go through with the necessary amendments. IN THE CHAIR: INGO FRIEDRICHVice-President

Political group: PSE
Madam President, I would like to very briefly respond to Mr Seppänen very briefly; not regarding the matter of Finnish television, but the first point which he raised. I am aware, of course, that about 10 days ago a certain article from the European Voice was recycled again and again across Europe. As rapporteur for the discharge of our own institution’s budget, I would have appreciated it if Mr Seppänen had taken the trouble to cast an eye over my report, which expressly and critically dealt with the issue of the inventory and which was available in all languages to all my colleagues here in the House from 10 February. I would also appreciate it if we could use this as an opportunity to take a little more interest in our own documents, our own recommendations for decisions, which are equally critical, not least of ourselves, rather than just giving knee-jerk reactions to certain press agencies. (Applause)

Political group: PSE
Madam President, I would like to congratulate the Commission on having persuaded the Member States at the Barcelona Summit to commit to the target for common development cooperation finance for the first time in history. This is certainly a very modest start to the joint process. However, I would like to ask Commissioner Fischler how the Commission intends to ensure that the Member States also really commit to this target in legal terms, so that this does not just remain a political resolution, and how you see the Member States sharing the burden. It is surely the case that the countries that have reached the 0.7% target for GNP – Sweden, Denmark, Luxembourg and the Netherlands – will not pay any more before they see the countries that are lagging behind take responsibility for their share too. This is all about very large sums of money. As my fellow Members have already mentioned here today, from 2006 EU countries will need to find an extra seven billion dollars per annum and a total of 20 billion dollars before then. How do you intend to accomplish this? It is very important for us to take a longer policy view of the situation already at this stage. As a result, our group is proposing that at Johannesburg the EU should commit to reaching the 0.7% target by the year 2010. I would ask other groups to support this target, on which we will shortly be able to vote.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, I have a small oral amendment. The committee still addressed its demand to the Convention. We should change this to ‘Intergovernmental Conference’ in order to demonstrate that we are up to date. The President established that there were no objections to the oral amendment. (Parliament adopted the resolution) *** President. – That concludes the vote. EXPLANATIONS OF VOTE - Report: Gargani (A5-0255/2003)

Political group: PSE
Mr President, I think this is the first time that my surname has been pronounced in my mother tongue. Thank you very much. It is no exaggeration to say that this is one of the issues to which all the institutions have paid the closest attention. It is also important to point out that this issue, to my mind, has brought into conflict the interests of a couple of companies, represented by the United States, and those of the European Union, which was trying to protect the commitments given to its own farmers, and to the ACP countries. Frankly, I believe that the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development did the best it could, or what was within its power to do, in order to reach an agreement with the Commission. We have accepted the use of the ‘first come, first served’ system, we have accepted a maximum reduction of the tariff preference of EUR 300 per tonne for the ACP countries, we have also tried to obtain guarantees for small and medium-sized enterprises, and we have also asked the Commission for a report on the system’s impact. However, I believe that we can forecast negative effects on the smaller commercial operators and on producers in the ACP countries. I have serious doubts, although I do not like stereotypes, that an image of the European Union giving in to pressure from two multinationals, represented by the United States, will do no more than confirm preconceived ideas. It sometimes seems as though the Commission, in its proposals on deregulation in international trade and agricultural production, has gone even further than the Cairns Group. I agree with Mr Dary’s accurate words on this issue. In any event, we must recognise that the regulations and Treaties lay down obligations and that acts of deregulation that may benefit certain companies will cost the Union’s budget dearly. In this regard I would like to express, not my agreement, but my amazement, at Mrs Schreyer’s statements yesterday on the agricultural budgetary context and the issue of bananas. I would like to conclude by congratulating Mr Dary on his hard work, and the Chairman of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and the coordinators. My group will vote in favour of the report in the idea that if we drag this issue out we are going to make it very much worse.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs is currently working on one of the important subjects on the European agenda, which was also one of the focal points of the discussions at the Stockholm European Council, namely the issue of demographic change, combined with comprehensive social protection, and other issues related to pension schemes within the European Union. At the moment, we have on the table the Commission proposal on supplementary occupational retirement provision. This is certainly – in particular from the point of view of European integration – a very important proposal, which should complement the statutory pension scheme and, together with a private pension, form, as it were, a three-pillar basis for secure retirement provision in the European Union. The second pillar, the supplementary occupational pension, will certainly play an increasingly important role in the Member States of the European Union. One reason for this is, of course, that, owing to demographic change, State security systems are experiencing financing problems, but it is primarily because we wish to have pensions which will provide for a secure future. In this context it should be noted that the Commission has not yet submitted a proposal for a directive to Parliament which covers the whole package necessary for an occupational pension, as it promised it would last year, but only one part of it. The European Commission's proposal for a directive contains no reference to tax arrangements. For us it is very important to know to what extent the existing regulations are to be supplemented by proposals to harmonise taxes or proposals for new taxation arrangements. Commissioner, you have announced that a communication will soon be published. In order to actually give our opinion on the overall package, it is very important for us to know to what extent the principle of the free movement of workers might not be undermined by diverging national taxation, by different taxation of contributions, including to occupational pension schemes, and by different taxation of pensions themselves, because we do have downstream taxation in many Member States. All of these questions remain open and are closely bound up with the success of the proposal for a directive which you have tabled. I have one further comment: it is unacceptable for workers to be discriminated against solely on the basis of the place where they then draw this pension. Neither tax avoidance, nor unfair tax competition, nor insufficient exchange of information on tax are responsible for this problem. What we actually need here is coordination of tax policies, the initial moves towards which looked so promising with the Monti package. It is also in the interests of workers who wish to engage in cross-border activities – and the Treaty provides for this – that we need to make this possible. That is why for us in the European Parliament it is terribly important that we also receive answers from you, before we complete our discussions, on how tax coordination is to be guaranteed in this sector.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, Commissioner, I am not going to talk to you about the huge numbers that you deal with. We all know that, of the 1.27%, 1.14% is committed and approximately 1% is spent. But we always blame the Member States for this and say that they commit more than they are then able to spend. I am going to ask you a very specific question about a programme that falls within the sole and exclusive competence of the Commission, which is the LIFE programme. The LIFE programme, which was allocated around EUR 100 million last year, committed EUR 20 million of its funds, despite having more than enough projects, which had been carefully evaluated and classified, for the programme to have been able to commit all EUR 100 million. This year, in which you will be assessing this programme – if you have not already done so, because it was due to be assessed any time now – is the Commission going to do the same? What are you going to do to ensure that the Commission allocates 100% of its appropriations and that, furthermore, it keeps some projects in reserve, since these programmes reached the normal level of implementation that you mentioned, of 70% or 80%, which is then spent within the Commission? Commissioner, the Commission alone is responsible for this, not the Members States.

Political group: PPE-DE