GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Mr President, I should like to thank you very much, Commissioner Monti, for the courage and the will you have shown in tabling this proposal. The Commission’s proposal is a step in the right direction, but we should like to have seen it go further in terms of free consumer choice, and the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party will therefore be tabling some amendments tomorrow. We were, however, obliged to support the Commission’s proposal in order to avoid any further watering down. There are many interests at stake, with many interested parties involved, and, as you yourself, Mr Monti, recently mentioned in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, some of these interested parties will stop at nothing in their attempt to organise future car sales in the way that suits them best. Unfortunately, the car manufacturers’ view of what is in their own best interests does not coincide with what is beneficial for consumers. We have clearly seen this in the form of the massive lobbying that has gone on everywhere in recent weeks and months in order to prevent a genuine internal market for car sales being established, with the consequent benefits for both dealers and consumers. We are surely not giving away too much by naming names and saying that it was, in particular, a couple of major German car manufacturers, Mercedes and BMW, who knocked on our door. A majority in the European Parliament obviously do not want all the benefits, however, while many of the key aspects of the Commission’s original proposal were voted down in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs. I had hoped we might have been able to reach a sensible compromise but, unfortunately, I have to say that I have been disappointed in this matter by a number of my otherwise good friends and allies in the Group of the Europe People’s Party and in the Group of the . I should nonetheless like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Konrad, for the sound work he has done and for having tried to move things in the right direction. I should like to conclude by giving Commissioner Monti the greatest possible encouragement to stand firm on this matter and by, for once, asking him not to listen to the majority of the European Parliament who have not known how to look after the interests of the ordinary citizen and consumer. My message is therefore: do not allow special interests to steer developments in a direction which is of benefit neither to dealers, consumers nor the overall European economy.

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, firstly, on a point of order, I believe that immigration policy has many elements and I do not wish to discuss issues such as allocations in this report. I believe that we are going to do so by means of the open coordination method in a future report. Secondly, as a personal statement, I would like say to Mr Nassauer and Mr Coelho that no part of my report promotes illegal immigration or allows a work permit in the European Union to be granted to people who enter illegally. I am talking about people whose illegal status has come about for bureaucratic reasons and who have not been expelled and who once again fulfil the admission criteria. I believe that this is far from promoting illegal immigration. My report in no way provides for the possibility of entering illegally and seeking work. Finally, Mr Nassauer, I regret that it pleases you that what may be a majority opinion in this House should be thrown out. I hope that the participants in the Convention take a different view and that in the future the majority opinions of this House are taken into account.

Political group: PSE
Madam President, when the European Union undertook to ensure there was a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, it was incredibly important, I believe, to establish good prior conditions for the development of renewable energy, particularly biofuels. It is not only, however, for the purpose of reducing emissions that it is important to invest in development work with a view to producing alternative fuels. The issue of a secure long-term energy supply for the European Union is also becoming ever more important. Because taxes constitute a very large portion of the selling price of energy products, different types of tax incentive are effective instruments of control. The proposal I shall confine myself to talking about concerns the possibility of reducing excise duty in the Member States, that is to say the Commission proposal for amending Directive 92/81/EEC. The proposal gives the Member States access to a flexible financial instrument of control for developing the production of biofuels. It takes account of the Member States’ budgets, local conditions and own choices of technical solutions. The proposal is therefore in keeping with the principle of subsidiarity too. I consider the amendments by the rapporteur and the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, which have been adopted by the committee, to have further improved the proposal. They contain demands for time limits and supervision, the evaluation of total energy efficiency and the assessment and analysis of environmental impact. That is why I am delighted to support the report, and I should like it to be approved by the European Parliament.

Political group: PPE-DE
At the end of 1998, the Commission proposed a Community action programme with a view to promoting the integration of refugees within the Union. Following our opinion and the response of the Council, the Commission replaced this project with a proposal to create a European Refugee Fund, initially for a period of five years (2000-2004) and I must say that I am delighted with it! In putting forward a multiannual plan with a wider sphere of activity, the Commission is acting in compliance with the Treaty of Amsterdam in undertaking long-term actions in favour of refugees and displaced persons and responding to the requirements expressed by the European Council in Tampere in October 1999 regarding the creation of an instrument appropriate for emergency situations. This represents a clear improvement on prevalent practice to date. The Fund is to establish a financial redistribution system in order to balance out the financial expenses incurred by Member States in receiving refugees and to enable those with the least developed systems to bring them up to speed. The Fund is a single instrument intended to integrate the three facets of European policy on refugees: the reception, integration and repatriation of refugees and displaced persons. It will therefore make it possible to support actions within the Member States such as improving reception conditions and procedures in terms of infrastructures and services (accommodation, material assistance, social welfare, assistance with administrative procedures), the integration of persons entitled to some form of stable international protection, voluntary repatriation and reintegration into the country of origin. The target groups are refugees, under the Geneva Convention, persons that have applied for this status, and displaced persons that have requested protection on a temporary basis. In addition to the structural measures, the Commission proposes to use this Fund to finance emergency measures in the event of an unexpected massive influx of refugees. For the financial year 2000, the Commission proposes an allocation of EUR 26 million for structural measures and EUR 10 million for emergency measures. As is often the case, this allocation is inadequate to handle the actual requirements. In order to obtain real results, the budget for this Fund must be increased. The European Commission must provide us with financial estimates covering the entire period of the programme within the scope of current financial perspectives and, if necessary, a proposal for the revision of appropriations, in view of the fact that much greater amounts will be necessary in order to achieve the Fund’s objectives. Let me conclude by emphasising that creating this European Refugee Fund represents the first step towards a common asylum system and we must continue to work towards this.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, over the last few months, we have examined the common organisation of the markets in the sugar sector in great detail and have held intensive and controversial discussions, not only with the Commission, but with all those who are in favour of total liberalisation of the sugar market. I should therefore like to congratulate the rapporteur very warmly because he has, in my view, succeeded in achieving a very good result in his report. Time and again it is said that sugar is too expensive and that it needs to be cheaper for consumers. I should simply like to refer to the BSE crisis. It shows that, although farmers are seeing prices fall by up to 30%, the consumer still pays the same price for the meat in the shops. I therefore fully support the extension of the organisation of the market in sugar until the marketing year 2005/2006. In my opinion, this is the key point in this proposal. This end date also coincides with that in the Berlin agreement, in which CAP funding is established for six years. We farmers need a policy on which we can rely. The sector's stakeholders, the sugar beet producers as well as the sugar manufacturers, need to be able to look far enough ahead to make appropriate investment decisions. In this context I should like to mention the imminent accession of new countries. I do not think that it would have been very prudent to establish a new COM for only two years, as originally proposed, because this would only have caused confusion and led to uncertainty. As far as the arrangements for storage levies are concerned, I can only fully support the rapporteur when he advocates that they should be maintained. They are an important instrument to keep the market stable and they have proved their worth over 30 years. It would be very short-sighted to disturb the equilibrium in a market organisation of this kind – which works perfectly – simply for the sake of reform.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, in agreement with Mr Katiforis I would like to present the following text – I only have it here in English – which differs slightly from the actual text. If I may just read it out: 'Welcomes the start of negotiations on confidence-building measures agreed on 31 October 2000, by the Foreign Ministers of both Turkey and Greece'. It is the start of the negotiations that we are welcoming here, not the outcome. Unfortunately we are not in a position to welcome that yet. (Parliament adopted the resolution) * * * Report (A5-0275/2000) by Mr Jové Peres, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on Community participation in Regional Fisheries Organisations (RFOs) COM(1999) 613 – C5-0108/2000 – 2000/2068(COS)) (Parliament adopted the resolution) Explanations of vote - Motion for a resolution (B5-0845/2000)

Political group: PSE
Mr President, the rapporteur is aware that the Green Group has criticised this report as unbalanced and it indeed is unashamedly pro-biotech industry, doubtless because of the explicit involvement of Glaxo Wellcome – or whatever they are now called – in preparatory meetings. However, the report in no way affects the legislative programme, which is addressing such issues as traceability, labelling and liability. The report has not dealt with serious concerns such as ethics in biotechnology, public health, consumers' concerns regarding food, and indeed the effects on the environment. However, the most extraordinary thing in this report is the reference to the market and the creation and availability of new financial resources and the rationality of European stock markets. I thought Mr Purvis clearly understood that stock markets are beyond the control even of a powerful Commissioner like Mr Liikanen and I urge him to ignore this extraordinary interventionist proposal.

Political group: Verts-ALE
This parliamentary report on ‘Romania’s progress towards accession’ is most illuminating and characteristic of the current process of the EU’s enlargement to Eastern European and Mediterranean countries. I should like to highlight the rapporteur’s concern, when she states that ‘Romania has so far not received the stamp of approval concerning the full functioning of its market economy’, and recommends that the country ‘needs to persevere in its efforts of economic reform in all areas’. The report calls on Romania to ‘pursue its structural reform programme with enhanced vigour’ and to ‘complete their privatisation agenda’ in order to bypass what it sees as the ‘late start of privatisation and restructuring of public enterprises’. The aim of which, as the report explains, is to generate business that is attractive to direct foreign investment, in other words, to place the strategic sectors of Romania’s economy under the control of the large corporations from EU countries. To conclude, I must say that, reading some of the points in this report, it is tempting to wonder whether, rather than giving ‘lessons’ to others, Parliament would be better advised to address first what is happening in the various countries of the EU.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, I also congratulate our Danish colleagues on the way in which they have handled enlargement. But, obviously, I have completely misunderstood the fact that we have resolved overnight the issue of the common agricultural policy. The President of the Commission said that the common agricultural policy has been solved. I feel that what has actually happened is that the agreement between President Chirac and Chancellor Schröder went in some way to undermine the way in which Commissioner Fischler was proposing his reforms. The other day when he spoke to the Agriculture Committee I felt very much that he will be a strong leader in his mid-term review and will carry the reforms through. I also noted that one of the proposals is that we reform the Agriculture Committee and go for codecision. I hope the Council and the Commission will support this because it will help to reform the common agricultural policy. We would have a totally different agricultural policy if the Agriculture Committee had codecision. We have also heard many vague ideas about how we are going to reform it and I put to you one or two ideas that I believe to be important. I ask the Commissioner, how will modulation work? How are we going to cope if we do not really reform the common agricultural policy in Commissioner Fischler's mind when we come to discuss the WTO negotiations? There has been talk about capping the common agricultural policy and yet there has been no mention of how we are going to use the funding from Pillar One to Pillar Two. How are we going to fund the new proposals in Pillar Two? Finally, I wish to speak particularly for my constituents in East Anglia, many of whom have not drawn on the common agricultural policy because they grow crops which have never been subsidised by this Union. They are going to be disadvantaged because, under the new proposals, there will be a payment on historical claims. I urge the Commission to rethink that and look at the old IACS forms. You have the measurements, make sure you look at those before you take a final decision. Let us make sure we have an agricultural policy which helps our farmers, helps the budget and helps the new democracies. (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, I speak for the . I would like, in introducing our group's position on this, to welcome the work done by Mrs Haug and by our own rapporteur, Mr Ferber, to thank the Commissioner, Mrs Schreyer, and also the Council President, Mrs Parly, for their significant assistance in achieving a budget on 23 November which, as the presidency has rightly pointed out, was a landmark in the way in which Parliament, the Council and the Commission have been able to help decide collectively a budget for the European Union. We have a budget which is under 1.06%, we have a budget, Mr Colom, which is within the financial perspective. I suspect that, to put it simply, flexibility is for small amounts and revision is for large amounts, but we will see in the next few years how that will go. But I would like to thank both the Commission and the Presidency-in-Office of the Council for their remarks about the joint declaration which we have put together, because that is also a first indication of how we are going to monitor improvements and performance in the running of the programmes, particularly in category 4. Turning to that for a moment, we have a lot of work in front of us and we await with interest the report by Mrs Schreyer, preferably before 30 June, so that we can use its contents for shaping up the 2002 budget. But in thinking about the question of the backlog on commitments and how we limit the duration of new commitments – obviously this comes into the domain of the financial regulation which we will have to negotiate. We believe it is absolutely fundamental that this progress report should be seen to restore the confidence of our citizens in the way in which the European Union institutions operate. A word on the reserve, Madam President-in-Office of the Council. You said, if I understood you correctly, that we should not be using the reserve because it was against the rules to do this. We use the reserve, particularly on first reading, to draw attention to particular points of weakness in the way in which policies are operating. The information policy in the institutions at the moment is a scandal and therefore, rather than putting money on the line for information policy when we know it is not being used effectively, we are going to be keeping much of that money in reserve waiting for the Commission to come up with the right proposals. Of course, the solution would be to allow us, as a joint budgetary authority, to lift funds being spent during the year and that may be an invention which we can insert into the revision of the financial regulation. Lastly, I would say, looking to the future, that Nice has shown us that there is perhaps a feeling that we are shifting a little bit towards intergovernmentalism, with the Council deciding on the numbers of our Parliament without our being consulted beforehand. Our confidence as one of three institutions, will only be maintained – and therefore the institutional agreement and the financial perspective maintained – if we manage to create mutual confidence and if we are consulted at every stage on our fundamental interests.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, we have a definitive text, approved at the conciliation meeting of 17 April, which rounded off a long period of work. We in the Committee on Women’s Rights and Equal Opportunities have sought to reach agreement on the most important points of this directive. It has not been easy; we have all made concessions, but we have managed to produce a text that satisfies the majority and which the Council agreed on following many meetings, both formal and informal. The directive addresses issues as important as the definition at Community level of sexual harassment; it bans discrimination against women on the grounds of pregnancy and maternity in the workplace, and also includes the issues of adoption and paternity, guaranteeing the employee’s job or an equivalent job; positive measures have been included for sectors in which one gender is under-represented; preventive measures have been drawn up to prevent discrimination in the workplace on the grounds of gender – especially harassment and sexual harassment – ensuring that real sanctions will be imposed in the event of non-compliance with the directive; equal treatment in the workplace is to be planned and systematic, and reports are to be drawn up every four years to help us determine the real situation women have to cope with. I believe that this is a good directive, which deals with the problems women face far too frequently, in the workplace and in professional life and will be a genuine tool to prevent discrimination. The excellent work done by the Spanish Presidency deserves mention as well as its efforts to ensure that the Council and the Commission were able to reach agreement.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, I would like to draw attention in Amendment No 13 to an important difference between the German text – which of course is Mr Rothley's source text – and the English and I believe also the French versions. In requiring response to claims, the German text uses the word 'unverzüglich', which means 'without delay', whereas the English text uses the word 'immediately'. That is a significant difference in terms of how the insurance companies have to respond. I would ask that in Amendment No 13 – and I have discussed this with the rapporteur and he agrees with me – the English text should read 'without delay' and not 'immediately'. In view of Mr Bolkestein's statement that Amendment No 13 will be accepted by the Commission, I believe this is a very important clarification and I would ask that it be accepted.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, following up the point that Mr Adam made, I presume you will report back at the beginning of the mini-session on the result and, of course, if there is a proposal for the establishment of a temporary committee this House will have to vote on it.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we welcome the fact that the Commission and the US Department of Justice have blocked the proposed MCI Worldcom – Sprint merger, and were also delighted to hear that the US Government is not inclined to approve the AOL – Time Warner deal. The Internet must continue to be a means of communication for all. We must therefore prevent the telecommunications and media giants from being able to occupy a dominant position. Competition law is an effective tool to this end. However, mergers also have an impact on employment and social cohesion. Telecommunications and media are not crisis-ridden industries; they are an expanding sector. Objectively, this makes it easier to take account of sociopolitical and employment policy aspects in merger decisions. Since the mid-nineties, the Federal Communication Commission in the USA has, in the case of several merger decisions, secured commitments from the companies concerned to increase the number of employees, improve quality of service, and do more to look after the public interest. Therefore we fail to comprehend why, in the welfare state of Europe, competition law should rule the day. We are calling for the EU to introduce binding social clauses into the mergers approvals process. Apart from the competition law test, we need additional criteria for the purposes of merger decisions, for example: firstly, the companies should give a binding commitment to preserving or raising the level of employment. Secondly, they should improve the quality of service for large sections of their customer base. Thirdly, they must implement to the letter, the mechanics of the European social dialogue and the provisions of the directive on informing and consulting workers, as they make the transition to the new merged company. Fourthly, the merger must bring added benefits when it comes to furthering the public interest. This relates to such matters as the need to safeguard a comprehensive and modern universal service, and requirements in terms of data and consumer protection. That is the only way to guarantee that competition policy will also strengthen the European social model in the new economy.

Political group: GUE-NGL