GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, let me begin by congratulating Commissioner Monti, because I believe he is looking after the rights of consumers and of the citizens of Europe, and they are entitled to obtain a decent quality of service and, more importantly, to obtain it at a reasonable price. One of the fundamental defining characteristics of services of general interest is that they are subject to a transparent public tendering procedure. I believe there is still a great deal of confusion here between liberalisation and privatisation. I believe that liberalisation offers a fair framework for competition. In Sweden, for example, we have seen that many towns and cities, often administered by one and the same political party, compete with each other in a bid to provide the best possible services and that a town or municipal administration offering the best deal to the public, to the consumer, is awarded the franchise to provide its services in other towns and cities too. In public tendering procedures, it is possible to specify quite precisely what is wanted. If, for example, a railway service is being put out to tender, a public authority can say that there will be three people at six in the morning, twelve at ten o’clock in the morning and three again at midnight. Good and appropriate tender specifications can then be drawn up for the service from A to B. I am also in favour of public resources being used here, because we are all in favour of the social component of government activity. We want to ensure that services of general interest are accessible to people who have no driving licence or who have financial problems, mobility problems or other disadvantages. I have to say, though, that liberalisation and fair competition are one track, while privatisation is a second track. I would ask that we try to avoid confusing the two and focus here on the systematic pursuit of the strategy of free competition. In this context I should like to congratulate Commissioner Monti once again for organising his proposal along these very lines. It goes without saying that city councils and public administrations which provide services of general interest will have to compete with our small and medium-sized enterprises. This is why public bodies put services out to tender. At the present time, two out of every three employees works for a small or medium-sized enterprise. There are 18 million businesses here that can bid for a franchise to provide public services for the benefit of consumers. The small and medium-sized businesses pay 80% of total tax revenue; in other words, they ultimately provide the money that enables us to afford these social services in the general public interest. For this reason I believe that the term ‘social economy’, which was once in common use, is inappropriate, as is our German term Daseinsvorsorge, literally ‘subsistence provision’, which is commonly used to translate ‘services of general interest’. What we want is the best service for our citizens. That can only be provided in the framework of fair competition.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, on a point of order I want to say how delighted I am to see you in the chair after your recent illness looking so fit and well!

Political group: PSE
Mr President, Mr Lange has submitted a first-class report on behalf of the Environment Committee. On 20 December last, the Council of Environment Ministers adopted sound amendments from Mrs Hautala. These comprised strict limit values aimed at preventing air pollution and carcinogenic particulate emissions from trucks. Unfortunately, the Council has decided in favour of 2008, compared to Parliament’s 2005. Mrs Hautala has already touched upon this. I would like to discuss CO2 emissions from trucks. The European Commission needs to table proposals fast. With regard to ordinary cars, Parliament had expressed its preference for a three-litre car in 2010. We have ended up with a feeble compromise of an agreement relating to a six-litre car in 2010. No agreements have been reached at all for trucks, whilst the mileage of trucks is rising at an alarming rate. It is expected that it will rise by 40% by 2015. This is why I would ask the Committee to submit a directive for more economical trucks. Otherwise, we will never meet the Kyoto objectives.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, as the chairperson of the European Parliament Intergroup on Wine: Tradition and Quality, I am obviously especially pleased that information provision and promotional activities in favour of agricultural products may also now apply to quality wine-growing products. When we discussed the reform of the common organisation of the market in wine in this House, we tabled amendments in an – unfortunately unsuccessful – attempt to insert a chapter on the promotion of wine products into this organisation of the market. I now have some small consolation, because we must not, in third countries where there is a demand backed by purchasing power for high quality wine products, leave the field clear for the wine producers of some third countries such as Australia, New Zealand and the United States, to name but a few, who have considerable amounts to spend on promoting their products, with far fewer constraints and regulations than those we impose on our own wine growers, who are occasionally victims of unfair competition, especially with regard to registered designations, even when they are not, as in some Member States, subjected to a policy of exorbitant taxation on alcoholic drinks. We must promote the moderate consumption of wine, whose medicinal properties have been known since ancient times. In those times, the Rule of Saint Benedict required monks to drink one ‘hemina’, or about half a pint, of wine before meals in order to awaken the spirit and aid digestion. Mr President, there is scientific proof that moderate consumption of wine is one of the best ways of preventing cancer, strokes, Alzheimer's disease and many other illnesses. Any money will therefore be well spent, and I hope that the Commission will not be so stingy with these appropriations as it has been, once again, with the appropriations for honey and for bees, when my amendments, even though they had been adopted by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, were not adopted by the Commission, the Council or our own Committee on Budgets. I really must protest about that, as it was only 15 million. This is really peanuts, and I therefore hope that the Commission will not prove to be as stingy with its funds in this instance.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, President of the Commission, these are important issues you are addressing. There is good reason for returning to them and developing this debate. I look forward to such a debate’s being held in a few weeks' time with more detailed proposals concerning your priorities. Allow me to thank you for your contribution to the new procedure we have now brought about. Above all, I want to say thank you to the Vice-President of the Commission, Mrs de Palacio. We now have a timetable and new procedures for bringing about better cooperation between the Commission and Parliament when it comes to the annual legislative and work programme. I believe that this interaction in the form of a partnership will operate extremely well, that it will be easier for citizens and the rest of us to follow the procedures and that the follow-up will be better, etc. I believe that, as early as in a week or so, Parliament’s different committees will enter into discussions with relevant members of the Commission. That is an important part of the work of reforming our various institutions, both for Parliament and the Commission. I should like to ask the President of the Commission how those in the Commission intend to proceed with the work in the White Paper, sent out in March of last year, on better forms of governance. Many of the issues affecting democracy and the future of Europe will be discussed in the Convention but, at the same time, we of course have ‘everyday issues’ which also fall under the working title, ‘better forms of governance’, for example increased openness, simpler procedures and increased participation on the part of citizens. I wonder if you can say something about those matters.

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, although the EU has already gone through several processes of enlargement in its fifty-year history, there has never been such inequality as in the present round. The acceptance of new members is not actually taking place on the consistent basis of equality and solidarity. I find the debate on the Czech Republic intolerable. Anyone who wants to examine the so-called Beneš decrees and raises issues of property cannot leave out of consideration the character in international law of the two-plus-four process involved in the union of the two German states. Anyone who wants Russia on their side, wherever they may be, had better not make any false moves over Kaliningrad. As seen from Brussels, the accession process is more than a one-way street; that is something that Mr Schulz addressed. Accession is meant to cost as little as possible even though the candidates are bound to the unconditional acceptance of obligations and payments in advance. The opening-up of markets is already turning out to mean good business for business groups, banks and insurers. Demonstrably better support was given when other countries joined – Spain being one of them. The candidates from Central and Eastern Europe have, on average, reached not even half the gross domestic product of the European Union, and the three Baltic States have only managed one-third. The level of production in some of these States is lower today than it was in 1990, which indicates that the preparatory payments have not been much use. What is required is the reshaping of the structural and cohesion policies to ensure that, in both present and future Member States, the less developed regions in general, and the border regions in particular, will receive appropriate support. We therefore need concepts that really will convince citizens of the candidate states that entering the EU is the right step for them to take, and one that will be to their benefit.

Political group: GUE-NGL
British Conservatives strongly support measures which are specifically designed to combat terrorism in all its forms. In this spirit therefore, we have supported the motion for a resolution and the counter-terrorist legislative measures being adopted by Council. However, we do not support the proposition that 'combating international terrorism implies a distinct strengthening of the relevant EU competencies', or that the EU should have responsibility for negotiating agreements on judicial and police cooperation with the US, which are properly a national responsibility, given the very different constitutional, judicial and operational traditions of key Member States such as the United Kingdom. We see no connection between the need for a resolute response to the recent terrorist attacks and the call for intensification of efforts to operationalise the European Security and Defence Policy. On the contrary, recent events underline the need for stronger transatlantic ties, and an enhancement of NATO, rather than the potentially divisive pursuit of some autonomous EU military capability. In addition, we wish to ensure that any new counter-terrorist legislation is also used to bear down on those terrorist organisations, such as the IRA in all its forms, and ETA, that have been conducting terrorist campaigns from and within EU Member States over the past several decades. – Stability and Growth Pact (RC B5-0602/2001)

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, the thought of the United States-European Union Summit planned for Dublin in two months’ time is sufficient justification for today’s debate, which, just for once, is being held far enough ahead of the event. This should be the norm as often as possible in this House. I am pleased that, on this occasion, the draft resolution produced by the Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, Mr Brok, makes much of the matters of security and defence which would justify, if necessary, a reassertion of the transatlantic links, which became extremely stretched at the time of the Iraq crisis. On the eve of our next plenary session, which will witness the implementation of the enlargement approved today, it would be appropriate to repeat what we already stated in April in the context of the own-initiative report on European defence policy, the conclusions of which have been taken up by our treaty partners and will, I hope, result in positive decisions when the Intergovernmental Conference has completed its deliberations. What did we say then, Mr President-in-Office of the Council and Commissioner Patten? We said it was a good idea quite simply to repeat that NATO is still today a fundamental guarantee of transatlantic stability and security and that this is why it makes sense to strengthen the capabilities of both NATO and the European Union. We must bear in mind, ladies and gentlemen, that we Europeans are partly responsible for the unilateralism of which we accuse the Americans so much, quite simply because we have been refusing for years to share with them the burden of defending our common values. This is why I am pleased about the commitment in this respect, recently reaffirmed by our Parliament and by the Convention.

Political group: PPE-DE
I welcome the outcome achieved by the Conciliation Committee and congratulate the rapporteur on her excellent work. This directive is crucial to the fight against atmospheric pollution since, by acting on the standardisation of engines and on fuel quality, it makes a reduction in car emissions and consumption possible. What is of particular importance is the link made, as a result of the European Parliament’s work, between this directive and the drawing up of a new national and Community fiscal policy for fuels. The environmental costs must be borne by the economy and fiscal policy is one of the most effective instruments to achieve these aims.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, I will speak against the proposal, by Mr Poettering, to refer this report back to Committee. In fact, it is an interinstitutional agreement which was signed by the previous President of this Parliament. The political persuasion of the President does not matter. It was Mr Gil-Robles, the President of our Parliament. And Parliament was in agreement. And we have to honour our own acts. I, today, have just found out about two new reasons to re-examine this report and it surprises me, because in fact it deals with something else, of another political approach, and I would welcome its being done clearly. From the point of view, not of my political group, but of the previous Parliament, of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, which unanimously approved this report, there is really no lack of clarity. And, furthermore, with regard to the possible lack of clarity between MEPs and officials, I must say that the Bureau of the Parliament which you, Mr President, form part of, clearly adopted amendment instructions last Monday for this regulation in accordance with their competences. Therefore, there is no lack of clarity. Furthermore, we have been subject to a summons by the Council for the last month because we have not honoured our word. Therefore, there is no lack of clarity here. Here there is a political will to create a conflict with the Council and not to respect our word. My group therefore radically opposes this proposal. (Applause)

Political group: PSE
EU rules prescribe the goods and services on which the Member States may impose high rates of VAT and those that, by way of derogation, may fall within the reduced rate. This exception already applied to food and clothes, but in 1999, labour-intensive services were also, on an experimental basis, brought under the umbrella of reduced rates of VAT. This has had a beneficial impact on employment. According to a recent hearing here in Parliament, the deployment of this instrument has created an additional 250 000 jobs throughout the European Union. There are also other positive effects. If we keep the bicycle repairman affordable, this will promote cycling. It is astonishing that the Commission should now wish to put a stop to this. The Commission supports its decision by deficient and incomplete enquiries and has insufficient evidence to substantiate that the experiment has led to unsatisfactory results. If the experiment is discontinued, countless jobs will disappear in Europe, 8 500 of them in the Netherlands. My party, the Socialist Party in the Netherlands, sees taxes as a useful instrument to achieve sound social security and provide public services, but it denounces this way of enforcing increases in them. We want to maintain the reduced rates of VAT on hairdressers, bicycle repairmen and cobblers. I call for enforcing the Member States' right to keep the rates of VAT on labour-intensive services low if this is underpinned by sound arguments from a social and employment point of view.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to make two comments on the Inglewood report. Firstly, I welcome the Commission’s basic principle that legislation that has already been amended several times and no longer gives a clear and coherent picture should have to be codified. In connection with my recently completed report on the pension funds directive, I also believe that simplification and consolidation of the life assurance directives is urgently required, because that will create clearer distinctions between the different activities and pillars. It is possible that when the pensions fund directive is accepted, insurance companies that are active in the third pillar and therefore also subject to the life assurance directives will in future be subject to the pension funds directive for their company pensions business. Since this likelihood will exist, it is important that what we are doing should be as clear, simple and transparent as possible. The Inglewood report and the simplification and transparency it initiates are therefore a welcome contribution to making things easier for the citizen to understand and therefore a contribution to a living internal market.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, I should like to take Commissioner Bolkestein back to the last part-session here when we discussed sales promotion. He may remember that I complimented him because he had written an article in a journal complimenting Parliament on rescuing the internal market. It is slightly disappointing therefore to find him back here at the following part-session adopting such a cautious approach on such a fundamental single market issue. In this case we are not talking about the single European market. We are talking about global markets and about the freedom of consumers to be able to benefit from lower prices for identical goods that are placed on the market, quite legitimately, outside the European Union, and which are then imported. I want to remind him – and he cautiously skirted around this in his answer – that we are discussing an archaic piece of legislation. The Trademarks Directive in its original form was certainly introduced to protect trademarks and to secure consumer confidence that they would know what they were buying. But subsequently, in cases before the Court of Justice, it is now being further elaborated into a means whereby trademark owners can actually protect their brand, or supposedly protect their brand and their authorised distribution systems, by essentially keeping prices higher artificially. He asked us quite rightly to say what has changed. I shall tell him what has changed. The first thing is that consumers are getting increasingly irritable about what they see as the failure to act on what ought to be a fundamental right. That consumer pressure was quite rightly cited by his colleague, Mr Monti, when we had a complete and total reform of the legislation relating to the selling and servicing of motor cars. What has that done? It has opened up the distribution system across the European Union. Essentially, cars will be available across borders much more freely than they were before and prices which differ from one market to another will clearly converge. So why should this be any different? I have to disagree with my colleague Mrs Fourtou. It is not a question of counterfeiting or other spurious issues. Surely the reason we have so many of these counterfeit brands is because the genuine brands are prevented from being sold at the price that consumers want to buy. It is a circular argument. I hope that in the July report he has commissioned he will have the facts available and that he will be able to meet the deadline of the end of December that we asked him to meet. This needs to happen so that we can come up with a sensible balanced view, not looking to the past, looking at all the evidence, to the benefit of consumers. We need to continue together with the Commissioner the task of creating a true single market for consumers. I hope he will give us an assurance this evening that he is prepared to move from his overly cautious approach and join with us in the crusade to give consumers across Europe a better deal.

Political group: PPE-DE
I would like to thank Mr Perry, Mrs Kessler, the other members of the Committee on Petitions, the Legal Service and the entire Secretariat, whose work has contributed to the preparation of the valuable document on the future of the institution of the petition. The institution of the petition is still the only legal instrument which places the citizens in a direct relationship with the European institutions, and it is therefore the only means of bringing about the Europe of the citizens, who want to recognise the validity of something which is in the process of being created that will serve to further improve the quality of their lives. Relations between the citizens are founded on law, and, therefore, the definition of an institutional forum which safeguards the corpus of European law becomes important in terms of giving due value to the diversities which are the European Union's assets. The Committee on Petitions has the privilege not only of receiving the citizens' complaints and hearing them directly, if the citizens are present in person, but also of being the epitome of the Parliamentary representativeness which is the very essence of democracy. It is my opinion that, during this legislature, we must guarantee the European citizens who assail Parliament with their questions a Parliamentary initiative which not only has moral value but is also effective for the purposes of correct interpretation of Community law by all parts of the institutions, whether central or peripheral. Without prejudice to the specific, essential competence of the jurisdiction of the Court of First Instance and the Court of Justice, the European Parliament must, in future, fully discharge its role of political legislator, developing effective legislative instruments through proposals to be incorporated into the Treaties as well as other avenues. A further measure could be the involvement of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, the Committee on Constitutional Affairs and the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, in order to progress to the practical implementation of this new instrument which will protect the citizens and their rights more effectively.

Political group: PPE-DE