GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
In Burma, generals have for years been keeping their own people in their gunsights, and the opposition in captivity. If the new Prime Minister, General Khin Nyunt, is really serious about his roadmap to democracy, he will immediately release Aung San Suu Kyi and her colleagues and give them an important role in this process. He presented this roadmap a few days ago behind closed doors, without the presence of the media or foreign diplomats. The plan is supposedly to set up a convention for a new constitution, which should lead to fair and free elections. As no information was given as to the how and when of this plan, the only conclusion I can draw is that the military regime is trying to sidetrack the West and is hoping to break out of its isolation. As it must not, of course, be allowed to succeed in this, I support the Council's decision to tighten the sanctions. Any remaining business contacts should be completely severed. The Commission and the Council, in cooperation with the United Nations, should continue to appeal for the immediate release of Aung San Suu Kyi and her colleagues. She has been held illegally for more than three months, during which time she has gone on hunger strike. The international community must make the Burmese authorities responsible for her well-being and the Red Cross must gain access to her. Pressure from the neighbouring countries in the ASEAN – China, India and Japan – must be stepped up. Fortunately, the United States has also been very forthright in its opinion about the current situation and has expressly pledged its support to Aung San Suu Kyi. Burma is still the pariah of the international community. The military junta sees the enforcement of its own power as more important than the suffering of the Burmese people. The generals' roadmap to democracy has so far only led to prison. This is not only about the liberation of Aung San Suu Kyi, but also about the liberation of the Burmese people as a whole.

Political group: ELDR
I should like to give the following explanation of my vote. I could not, for the following reasons, vote for the resolution concerning climate changes and the way in which the Kyoto conference as a whole is to be followed up. The resolution contains nothing about which particular consequences for the climate the unreasonable development of nuclear power has. In my home country, Sweden, the parliament has decided to phase out nuclear power by closing an extremely dependable nuclear power station, Barsebäck on the Sound. According to calculations made, closing this power station will increase carbon dioxide emissions by approximately 3.5 million metric tons per year. This more than doubles Sweden’s contribution to overall CO2 emissions from electricity production. This unwise strategy in my own country has also meant that Sweden has negotiated for itself a quota within the EU, on account of the EU’s commitments following the Kyoto Conference, as a result of which carbon dioxide emissions in Sweden have been permitted to increase by 4%. This is extremely regrettable and remarkable, considering that the EU’s responsibility after Kyoto is to reduce CO2 emissions by a total of 8%. Because these important facts were not dealt with in the resolution, I could not support it.

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, you have announced an ambitious programme, Mr President-in-Office, and the ambition of your proposals is commensurate with the challenges which lie ahead. That is why, at the end of this debate, I should like to express the wish that you will be equal to your own ambition and that you will enjoy success. On behalf of the CDU/CSU Group in this Parliament, may you be an effective President-in-Office of the Council. You will need our support and you will also have it. You rightly said at the beginning that you want to reconcile the public with Europe. This has been expressed in various different ways. The reasons for the loss of confidence in Europe, which before was hidden beneath the surface but which, since the referendum in Ireland, is now there for all to see, are many and diverse; they have been mentioned. In passing, however, it should be stated that a further factor in this was the way in which the powerful members of the Council for example dealt with a country like Austria. Perhaps your foreign minister will have the opportunity to repair some of the damage which has been done to Austria’s faith in Europe. The method adopted hitherto in intergovernmental conferences has had its day because decisions of consequence – such as those made when treaties are amended – must no longer be made in Council back rooms in the dead of night; instead beforehand we need a phase of public consultation. That is why we are calling for an assembly, similar to a convention, to be set up which will organise a public dialogue in Europe before decisions are made in the Council. To achieve this we need, above all, your support. Mr President-in-Office, it would be a first and very specific step forward – and would also send out a signal to the Irish – if the intergovernmental conference were to be opened up and made more transparent. In taking a step of this kind, we would also be justified in going before the Irish for a second time and tabling the treaty for a vote. This is what you will be judged on, and we wish you every success for your work in the interests of Europe. (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, as you know, countless regions of southern Europe were severely affected this summer by unprecedented forest fires. In its resolution on the effects of the summer heatwave, adopted on 4 September, a substantial majority of this House voted in favour of an amendment tabled on the initiative of my colleague Mr Savary, with the support of thirty-one Socialist Members, of whom I was one, insisting that the European Union be granted the same financial resources as it had under the regulation on protection of the Community's forests against fire, in particular so as to fund appropriate facilities to prevent forest fires, such as firebreaks, forest tracks, access points and water supply points. Allow me therefore to express my delight that the Council, thanks I might add to the perseverance of our rapporteur, Mrs Redondo Jiménez, is now finally acknowledging, at least to some extent, that our arguments are valid. We will in fact be asked to vote tomorrow on two amendments that partially meet our concerns. We therefore note that a step has been taken in the right direction. For all that, is it sufficient? Forest fires should remain one of our political priorities, one of the symbols of the solidarity between northern and southern Europe. I very much hope, therefore, that during the Commission's evaluation exercise in December 2005 the issue of an independent, European budget line, devoted to preventing forest fires, will again be raised, and that this will be done in close cooperation with all of the stakeholders, first and foremost the foresters. We ought therefore, without prejudice of any kind, to consider whether the choice that is being made today is not to the detriment of a general safety policy, a policy that had proved to be very effective and was a visible sign of the European Union's presence in our regions.

Political group: PSE
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, when we began our work on BSE in the Temporary Committee of Inquiry into BSE, the very first thing we had to do was to expose and overcome cover-ups, secretiveness and deceit, and to take measures which, overall, have been very successful and offer a way forward in solving the problem of BSE. We have already heard many times today that the real problem facing us is to implement the decisions we have already taken. Mr Byrne, I am extremely grateful that so far you have made excellent progress in putting into practice the undertaking that you gave when you were appointed. You have brought forward proposals such as the White Paper and the hygiene regulations, and I can assure you that Parliament will deal swiftly with those hygiene regulations. We will work quickly enough for them to be effectively implemented in the new few years. But I am not aware of anything happening at Council level here. There are only declarations and opinions, but no decisions as regards directives or regulations. What I find incredible is this tug of war in the Council over meat exports and imports. This seems to be all about emotions. The public's feelings have really been whipped up, with the sole aim of securing the market for each country's own beef. Nothing else has happened! Now emotions are being stirred up again with dramatic announcements about banning animal meal as feed for all animals. If you would only implement what we agreed, then you would not need to worry about all this any more. It reminds me of witch-hunts in the Middle Ages. We are pursuing 'sinners' who are not guilty at all. The causes are to be found somewhere else altogether. I would like to suggest rapid introduction of these tests that you too are proposing, Commissioner, and not as spot checks, but for every animal slaughtered, without any age restrictions. Only then can we say to the public 'This meat has been tested and you can eat it'. There really is no better solution. I have worked out the cost – 10 cents per kilo. So we do not need to argue here about millions of euros – every member of the public will happily pay this, I am quite sure of that!

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, I too want to speak about Mrs Haug’s report on own resources. Her advice that we should go for a European tax is premature and unnecessary. She says that the Belgian presidency is expected to put this forward or start a debate. I have read the notes on the work programme by the Belgian presidency and there is little or no reference to it. There is only one reference to the tax on flows of speculative capital – the so-called Tobin tax. That was voted down by Parliament only a few months ago. At the end of the document there is also reference to direct or indirect funding of the European Union, so that we can once again operate with the European Union’s own resources. I put to her that the Prime Minister of Belgium only, in the last few days, said that he does not want to pursue this path towards a European Union tax because 'it is sensitive'. It is very much a sensitive matter and totally unnecessary. Mrs Haug mentions that the amount of money coming in from the nation-states through gross national product is going to rise. I accept that. I sat in the House of Commons in the United Kingdom for 18 years before coming into this Chamber. I always thought it was marvellous that the percentage of gross national product coming into European spending was declining. That downward path has continued during the last two years. I applaud that. It shows good and effective control of spending and nation-states do not mind passing on that money to the European Union. I see no reason whatsoever for the European Union to raise its own direct tax. That is why I have tabled four amendments tomorrow for voting. Two of those will be on a roll-call vote. You can see this evening that there is opposition from various countries. I hope that people will vote in support of my amendments and oppose the European tax.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, I want, in this speech, to focus in the main on the work of the Intergovernmental Conference, which forms, indeed, the centrepiece of the Italian Presidency of the Council, and which we want to encourage the Italian Presidency to complete before the end of this year, that being the only way of ensuring that Europe will continue, post-enlargement, to be capable of taking action, transparent and acceptable to its citizens. This is a big task for the Heads of State or Government to take upon themselves in Europe’s interests. So I also want to ask you – and here I am appealing to the Council and to the Heads of State or Government as a whole – to be really aware of the European point of view and of their responsibility to Europe in the negotiations, and not to get tangled up in trivial national issues. We saw at the last Intergovernmental Conference, in Nice, where that can lead, and that is not the European spirit that we desperately need. People have high expectations, and the Council bears great responsibilities. In its fashion, the Convention produced an astonishing good result. I would like to state that it makes an outstanding basis for the deliberations that are now to take place at the Intergovernmental Conference. I would like to point out, though, that a few critical comments do of course have to be made alongside all the positive aspects. Firstly, I think it right and proper that we should find a place in the preamble of this Treaty for the Christian heritage that has shaped this continent like nothing else, the clasp that holds it together. Let Mr Cohn-Bendit make as much noise as he likes about that, but his roots, too, are in this continent’s Christian heritage. (Applause, heckling and laughter) Your reacting in the way that you do proves me right. Secondly, we will have to give some thought to whether the Convention, in part 3, has overshot the mark here in transferring certain tasks to the European level that have not been there before and should not be there now. I would give services of general interest as being one example. If we have a proper understanding of subsidiarity, the European level has no business dealing with services of general interest, nor with the coordination of social and economic policy. I do not know what added value there is for Europe in this area, where a bit more subsidiarity and competition among the Member States is more likely to be of benefit to the internal market in terms of the Lisbon objectives being achieved. The same is true of the rules on access to the national labour markets. These are issues on which decisions are the Member States’ responsibility, and questions to which the public expect answers from the Member States rather than from the European level. If we succeed in resolving these problems as well, we will end up with a Treaty that really does deserve to be supported by people throughout Europe. The most honourable thing that the Council can do is to assume responsibility as representatives of the people of Europe.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Group of the European People’s Party , I would like to begin by congratulating Mr Kirkhope on the quality of his report, which deals with a vital point linked to the establishment of a common immigration policy. This is a subject we have debated many times over the years, arguing that any such policy should proactively promote legal immigration, running alongside an effective campaign against illegal immigration and the traffic in human beings. We have also championed a European asylum system which respects our international obligations on the one hand while, on the other, safeguarding the stability and security of the Union’s Member States. This initiative relates to the mutual assistance which should be provided in situations giving rise to the need to remove third-country nationals who are the subject of removal orders ending their illegal residence, bearing in mind that air transport has become the most commonly-used means of removal. This proposal for a directive aims, therefore, to lay down measures that may be taken by the competent authorities to assist with escorted or unescorted removals at European transit airports. The requesting Member State must always ascertain, first of all, whether removal to the state of destination is possible using a direct flight. If that is not possible, the requested Member State must provide assistance with the transit of third-country nationals to be removed. Transit may be refused if the third-country national faces the threat of inhumane or humiliating treatment, torture or the death penalty, or if his life or liberty would be at risk by reason of his race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political conviction. In other words, Mr President, we must remain true to our principles: we cannot countenance violations of the principles and fundamental rights on which we base European integration. We cannot, however, move away from the substantive motives for granting asylum as laid down with binding effect in the Geneva Convention on refugees. We must also remember that we cannot implement policies liable to encourage waves of illegal immigration, involving the trafficking and exploitation of individuals. With this in mind, then, a great many of Mr Kirkhope’s proposals are brimming with good sense and relevance.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to call special attention to a problem that forms part of a tidal wave of disaster engulfing a whole region, a million people. The Democratic Republic of Congo is at this moment being ravaged by war. A war that turns mainly on the considerable natural wealth of the country. For years the land has been used and abused, a population has been sidelined for the sake of the lucrative exploitation of what nature has to offer. War is an ideal situation for very lucrative deals, because there is seldom any control or accountability. The example which most fires the imagination today is the extraction of and trade in coltan, a material without which none of us could communicate with such mobility and ease. We pay ridiculously little for this material, while today the local population, for the first time in history, is facing serious famine. The war that is currently raging permits not only so-called ‘legal’ exploitation of this type, but also much less covert forms of plunder. In addition it is clear that the lucrative trade in uranium and nuclear waste almost exclusively benefits Western interests. We could also ask questions about the role of Western embassies and their associated agencies. I should particularly like to draw attention to one aspect of this long-drawn-out state of abuse. For many years the European countries and the United States have extracted uranium, which was responsible for such horrors as Hiroshima and Nagasaki. To make matters worse Western nuclear waste is dumped in the same region. Radioactive waste from the 1960s and 1970s is still an unmistakable direct threat to the population. Consequently it is encouraging that Prime Minister Verhofstadt spoke ambitious words yesterday about tackling the situation in the region. It must not stop at empty words. The end of the cold war and the arms race means that the demand for the termination of the trade in uranium and nuclear waste is not an exaggerated one, but extremely reasonable, a demand that as it were flows naturally from the values to which Europe is pledged.

Political group: Verts-ALE
I would thank the Commissioner for his answer. I have a number of questions. The more I read about this procedure, the more it sets me thinking. Does the Commissioner not think it a touch strange that representatives of the industry to be regulated, that is to say the industry which produces toys and other items for children, should act as chairmen of the standardisation committees whose job it is to establish rules, at national or other levels, for those products that are released onto the market? Does the Commissioner himself not think it strange that products with which children come into contact on the market are not tested, which is why no one can really assess their safety? Does the Commissioner not think it a little strange that, in the most recent cases involving, for example, chocolate eggs, toy cap pistols and non-flame-proof clothes used by children for dressing up in, the judgment has in every case turned out to be favourable to the industry instead of in accordance with children’s interests? I think it is quite clear that there is a need for a new method of standardisation based on objective assessment criteria rather than upon subjective criteria that are in the interests of the industry.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, I am now focussing just on sport, or more accurately, its absence from the draft budget that has been adopted by the Council. A statement has been made in many consecutive summits, most recently at Nice, on the social importance of sport. Despite that, sport is hardly taken into consideration in the work of the Union. The situation has become more critical as, unfortunately, the EU had to withdraw from WADA funding. The Committee on Budgets has repeated the proposal by the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, which was agreed in Parliament’s first reading, for an appropriation of five million euros for preparatory actions for a Community policy in the field of sport. The appropriation would be used, for example, to help the work of sports associations to prevent exclusion amongst youth. I hope that the motion will receive Parliament’s support in the vote on Thursday. It would also be very much in harmony with preparations for the physical education theme year.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, honourable Minister, Commissioner, sustainable development involves many factors. It is terribly easy to write about wonderful dreams and to use fine words. I would like to see those attending the European Council in Gothenburg dare to point the way forward. I would also like the courageous step to be taken of examining the EU’s own accounts, its own system of subsidies. Mr Blokland addresses this in item 5 and Mrs Hulthén in item 33 of her report, that is, that we need to revise the agricultural subsidies. I am happy to see that the Commission’s declaration is a little more stringent in stating that, when the common agricultural policy is reviewed in 2002, greater emphasis should be placed on quality than on quantity. Agriculture is still Europe’s main industry, with agriculture and forestry being responsible for our cultural heritage, our recreation and biodiversity. The issues are chemicals and nutrients in the water, air quality and public health. So the question must be: How sustainable is the EU’s own subsidy system for agriculture? Is it not time to use some of this money for sustainable development, rural development, protecting biodiversity, removing chemicals and growing food which we can eat happily and safely? If only the EU would dare to take such an initiative, indicate the direction to be followed and declare ‘we will go that way’!

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, I too have something to say about paragraph 47, but it is something rather more important. There is something wrong with it. It contains the words: ‘... a treaty concluded last month between the Republic of Yugoslavia and Macedonia’, but the treaty was concluded last year. It sparked the crisis in Kosovo. I ask that this serious mistake be corrected. Regarding paragraph 47:

Political group: PPE-DE