GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Mr President, I should like to begin by thanking the Commission and Mr Cocilovo for their excellent, not to say exemplary, cooperation on this report. The report is important because it concerns the most fundamental aspect of our economy, at European, national and regional level: that is to say, the efficiency of the transport system. It is also very important because it has the potential to contribute to overcoming environmental problems, crowding and noise. The Commissioner said that the Council was concerned about competitive disadvantages, and this concern is natural, as in some areas the charges are too high, for instance in northern Scandinavia, where the distance not only to the European market but also within the region and within each country is great. A system of user charges such as this must not be instrumental in obstructing transport with the result that the economy and employment are hit. The amendment to Article 7 of the report states that it should be possible to set lower charges. In my opinion, it is good to have this option and, when it comes to defining this, regional-policy aspects should be included. This is because, as I said, there must be no ensuing obstruction of transport such as to hamper the economy in certain regions of Europe. I have gained a hearing for these ideas in the Cocilovo report, and for that I give my warmest thanks.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, the greatest problem I have with the text on which we are going to vote tomorrow – I have just acquired a copy – lies in article 3 of the Commission proposal, according to which we would ban these substances in the European Union. I ask the Commission to listen because I am going to ask for clarification; according to this article we would vote for a ban on these substances within the European Union, but this ban would not affect their manufacture or marketing within the European Union, since we could send them to another Member State with a view to their export to third countries. Mr President, this is not acceptable to me, since if we ban these substances and their marketing within the European Union, as the agreement says, it would not be legal to be able to send them, within the European Union, to another Member State. Nor would it be legal, as we are currently doing, to produce them in a Member State. Therefore, I would ask you to clarify whether this is the case because, according to this text and according to the Commission, this ban would not affect marketing or exporting to third countries. Mr President, I believe that this would be extremely hypocritical. What we do not want for ourselves, we allow for others when it is a question of earning money. I believe that everything has its limit, and if we have principles for ourselves, we must hold the same principles with regard to non-EU countries; and, of course, within the European Union, we cannot produce, manufacture or market these substances.

Political group: PSE
Commissioner, thank you for your reply. I would like to ask you whether you believe that the fact that the Commission has over recent years had to adopt this series of decisions relating to sport in the field of policy and competition highlights even more clearly – if that is possible – the need to include an article on sport in the future European Union Treaty.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, the proposal presented by our group last week that we should debate humanitarian aid to Iraq was rejected with arguments such as ‘it is hasty’, ‘we have not thought about it’, or ‘perhaps when the war is over’. Mr President, I frankly believe that this is not a serious approach. Our group believes that this debate should begin as soon as possible. Mr President, I remember that very recently this Parliament approved a joint resolution stating that this crisis was unprecedented and required urgent action. And it is not just necessary from a humanitarian and solidarity point of view, but also from a political point of view, because we must also re-establish the European Union’s unity of action in the face of this conflict, this crisis and this war. And the best way to do this would be to talk and to reach an agreement on humanitarian aid. (Parliament rejected the request)(1)

Political group: Verts-ALE
The Moderate Party’s delegation to the European Parliament has today voted in favour of the report on women's rights and EU international relations. For us, it is obvious that men and women have the same rights. The best way of achieving prosperity in the world is through free trade. It is good that the EU sign trade and development agreements with other countries. We also think it good that these agreements include clauses concerning democracy and human rights so that the agreements can help improve the situation for the people of these countries. We do not wish this report to be interpreted in terms of the European Parliament being in favour of trade boycotts against those countries that do not fully comply with the agreements’ clauses concerning democracy and human rights. Trade boycotts generally harm vulnerable people in poor countries.

Political group: PPE-DE
My question specifically concerned the reaction of the US Government to the text of the preliminary draft. There have in fact been three preliminary draft texts with the last one, to my knowledge, dating from July 1999. Is this the text which you will be submitting, or an amendment to the original version? Version 3 is already much weaker than Version 2 following the comments of US industry as relayed by the US Government. I note in particular that when you talk about the international law with which the text would not be compatible, you are referring in fact to the rules of the World Trade Organisation. The arguments of the US Government concern the fact that a future ban on the presence of dangerous substances in electrical and electronic waste would be contrary to the WTO rules. This worries me because this means that, when adopting texts, we are going to be continually threatened by attack from the World Trade Organisation. This will fundamentally weaken European environmental legislation and particularly this proposal.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, three of the reports before us this evening provide an opportunity for us to assess the functioning of economic and monetary union prior to the Spring European Council. Turning to the situation of public finances in France, one cannot help remarking that economic policy is not considered as an issue of common interest. The Treaty is not being respected. One cannot help remarking too that economic and monetary union does not actually exist, certainly as far as economic union is concerned. The Stability and Growth Pact is at the heart of these mechanisms. Nevertheless, it appears to be more of a safeguard rather than a tool of economic policy. The adoption of the Lisbon strategy could subsequently have been the catalyst that would have provided the economic and monetary union with an economic policy. In short, the Stability and Growth Pact has not proved to be a dynamic tool for implementing this strategy. In principle, the tools we have at our disposal are the famous broad economic policy guidelines we are discussing again this evening. These will galvanise approaches on European Union economic policy in the weeks and months to come. What could the outcome be, Commissioner? At present these broad economic policy guidelines are functioning as an academic exercise. They are not having any impact on the public finances of the Member States, which simply wait for penalties to be imposed through the implementation of the Stability and Growth Pact once it is too late. Europe needs a strategy for growth. You said so yourself in your speech. This means we need more tools than we currently have available. Commissioner, the Council has just expressed its opinion on your statement. I think we need to go further and we must do so at the Convention. I think that we must work together to establish mutually acceptable proposals. We should draw up measures which will at long last endow the European Union with the means not only to develop a genuine economic policy, but also to conceive of it as serving the common good and to implement the objectives of the Lisbon strategy.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, the Commission has proposed a new regulation on concentrations between undertakings, as part of the broader project of updating the legislation on violations of competition rules and the effects such violations might have on the proper functioning of the single market. This is an extremely sensitive area, in which legal certainty should be enhanced and administrative procedures made more flexible. The transparency and monitoring of decisions, and appeals against them, should also be improved, as should the active, dynamic and appropriate participation of all the parties involved in undertakings. Concentrations or mergers between undertakings are a fundamental economic and legal process. They make the markets more dynamic, help undertakings to restructure and encourage economies to grow. This process cannot and should not be perceived as leading inevitably to the abuse of a dominant position. A very clear distinction must be drawn between, on the one hand, the whole business of investigating violations of competition rules following allegedly irregular behaviour and, on the other, the normal process of monitoring a merger, which should, as a matter of principle, be accepted as legal and in accordance with the rules governing the market. That is why the amendments already approved by the Parliamentary committee, and those to be tabled in plenary, in particular by the Group of the , are of fundamental importance. In Community legislation and its underlying political philosophy, competition is not an end in itself. It is, rather, an instrument with which to achieve and attain the Union’s major goals. Extreme caution is needed, therefore, when adopting European Union legislation with a view to substantially reducing competition (such laws exist in other legislative systems, in particular in the United States). It is only right for the final positions of the Parliamentary committee and the rapporteur to reflect this caution. It should not be forgotten, furthermore, that the majority of those consulted in business circles expressed reservations and concerns about the adoption of new legislation, especially in view of the fact that the legislation on abuse of the dominant position has worked well up to now. The efforts made by the Commission to table this proposal for a regulation, following the December 2001 Green Paper, are much to be commended, and deserve Parliament’s support overall. It is crucial, however, that some amendments be introduced to improve the text of this report, emphasising legal certainty and, above all, highlighting the role which workers in the merging undertakings should play. The workers should oversee the whole process and provide not only relevant information but also guarantees that the operation in question will be an economic and social success.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, you promised to investigate the matter of the dress code that an Italian MEP attempted to introduce during a hearing in Brussels. At the same time, you recommended that I obtain a good tailor, and I hope you are satisfied with the result, for the bill will be sent to yourself. (Laughter)

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, as reflected in the resolution agreed between the four groups, we have had good news and bad news with regard to Paraguay. Clearly, the bad news is that democracy is once again being threatened, but there has also been good news: the democratic forces have resisted and, furthermore, General Oviedo has been arrested in Brazil. We believe that Paraguay is probably a forgotten country, which has been helped by its integration into Mercosur, and, from that point of view, it is important that our relations with Paraguay should improve the situation, and that Brussels should find a way to help that country and at the same time remind it, as we will surely do later in the case of Peru, of the democratic clause which is the inspiration for all our actions. We also believe that it would be a positive thing for the Commission to take account of Paraguayan civil society. Other equally positive signs are the reduction in corruption and the hope that General Oviedo, like Pinochet, will be tried.

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, there have been several weeks for us to reflect carefully upon the draft Treaty establishing the Constitution. It is gratifying for those of us who were Members of the Convention to see that, despite some initial posturing, most members of the European Council appear now to be accepting the outcome of the Convention with few qualifications. They can all see that if the IGC discards the outcome of the Convention, then it will fall to them to come up with alternative solutions commanding a greater consensus. Prime Minister Blair should be especially congratulated for apparently discarding previous British Government positions upon defence. At his Berlin Summit meeting at the weekend, Mr Blair seemed sensibly to accept the Convention's proposals for structured cooperation within and outside Nato, allowing a core group of capable Member States to forge forward to build a common European security and defence policy, not as a last resort but as a first call. It is a tribute to the Convention process that it stands up to such critical assessment, especially from this House, which is not known for complacency when it comes to these questions. The Convention certainly examined all the options, refined all the arguments, and took a broad political approach with the common interest of Europe very much at the centre of our work. It is for that reason that this resolution properly demands that the spirit of the Convention – transparent, pluralistic, political – should be brought forward to the IGC. I support the President's proposals that there should not be technical working groups. I very much support their proposals to have stronger representation of the European Parliament at the IGC. Perhaps it will be possible before the summit on 4 October to reopen this issue at the General Affairs Council next week. An IGC with a more democratic flavour and less diplomatic style will be more successful and much quicker in reaching a conclusion.

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, I know that many Members have very important commitments back in their constituencies and regions, and maybe even more important appointments back at the airport. However, we have been waiting for a number of reports, especially the Zappalà report, to come to the floor of this House for a reasonable period of time now. We all have our voting lists in front of us, we were sent here to vote on these issues, so can we now get on with it? It seems that we are putting things off for no reason whatsoever. (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, I too should like to congratulate Mr Corbett. This is not exactly a straightforward subject. Perhaps the easiest way to explain it – since we always have a few visitors with us at this time of day – is to say that we are talking about building a bridge. The Corbett report is an attempt to build a bridge out of this European confusion of non-competencies or mysterious clan competencies, which mean, as Mr Radwan said, that all of a sudden rules directly affecting the lives of millions of people are adopted at a lower level, when there is no direct democratic legitimacy for this. This is to a large extent due to the history of the European Union and its failure to have a clear separation of powers. This state of affairs means that many issues fall in a grey area and are delegated. In some cases laws are still made by civil servants; in certain areas this is a practice that is even on the increase. The fact that the European Parliament is putting up a fight is, I think, a historic achievement and also legitimises its existence. But what is crucial now is undoubtedly for the Convention, which is of course occupying a great deal of our attention at the present time, to make it much more clear what happens where, and it is of course vital that this include the power for the European Parliament – this representative body of the people – to be able to call back such implementing powers once they have been delegated. The success of this project will depend on this, but also on whether we can find the words and expressions – once Mr Corbett has built this bridge – to explain this to the public and the electorate in a way that they can actually understand, so as to bring clarity and transparency to the issue, so that there is nowhere that anyone can hide any tricks. With this in mind I would stick to my ceterum censeo, that there can be no democracy without transparency.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, I should first like to say that Mrs Napoletano’s report is quite excellent, not only because she is a member of my group, but also because she has put a great deal of work into the report. I am also delighted that Commissioner Verheugen has taken over the wider Europe dossier, because I am convinced that he will oversee it just as successfully as he did enlargement itself. The Commissioner touched on a key issue, namely how we should treat the candidate countries in this strategy, the countries that have a prospect of membership. I understand his fears. Nevertheless, I am convinced that the wording that we have chosen is right, and we can certainly continue to work on this. This House is divided into three distinct camps on this issue. There are those who say that this is our golden opportunity to bid a permanent, or at least prolonged, farewell to Turkey and perhaps also the Balkan countries as candidates and to push them into a different category. And there is the Commissioner’s proposal to leave them out of this initiative. Mrs Napoletano’s report, that we adopted by a majority in the committee – we will of course see what the result of the vote is here in the House tomorrow – rules out neither one nor the other. I understand what the Commissioner said, but we do not know what will be decided in 2004. If, for example, we do not open negotiations with Turkey, then it would be in a different, perhaps even worse position than other countries, with whom we would be reinforcing the wider Europe concept of building good relations with our neighbours. In the Balkans, which, like Turkey, I know very well, we have countries with whom we are not going to be able to talk about membership for years to come. If, obviously on the basis of the Commission’s work, we can together give Croatia a clear signal that we can negotiate – and I hope we can – then we are actually saying to all of the Balkan countries: there is nothing stopping you joining the European Union if you meet the same conditions as Croatia. In the meantime, I think it would be very sensible – and this also supports Mrs Napoletano – for us to involve them in this initiative. It may be possible to create a special status precisely for those countries that have definite membership prospects, so as to make it clear to them that the one does not exclude the other. I fully support Mrs Napoletano’s report, as it stands.

Political group: PSE
Thank you very much for that reply. Let me reiterate my appreciation that the Commission and Parliament are, for the first time, speaking with one voice on changes to Parliament's role in important trade agreements. I just want to ask you a non-legal and institutional question: if we look, for instance, at the decision which was taken to submit the Uruguay Round conclusions to the assent of this Parliament, there were some legal questions relating to the institutional and budgetary implications of the Agreement, but the decision was fundamentally a political recognition that this was an agreement of such importance that the strict boundaries of what was then Article 113 could, so to speak, be overstepped, thus allowing the Agreement to be submitted to Parliament's assent. My own view is that the accession of China to the WTO, whilst perhaps not quite as eye-catching as a multilateral agreement, is just as important to the future global trade regime, and that a similarly political position might therefore be taken by both Parliament and the Commission. I would urge you to do so. I would ask you what you think we could do together to promote this type of action.

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, we can all stand here today and condemn the actions of the US Government in imposing these unjust, illegal and completely unfair tariffs on steel products imported into the USA. We all know that the tariffs have simply been put there for short-term political advantage and we regret it for that alone. But we must also stand united behind some clear, firm and serious action. We must show we mean business. The Commission must now act swiftly within the WTO to overturn these tariffs. We must see safeguarding measures brought in to prevent a flood of cheap imports from damaging our own industry. Those measures must be implemented in respect of all non-EU sources of steel in the form of quotas based on 1998 import levels if we are to do a proper job in protecting our own industry. I do not recommend fighting fire with fire in this circumstance. Instead, we must dump a large cold bucket of logic, common sense and international law onto the head of the US Government and bring it to its senses.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, the running aground of the “East Sea” on the French coast is a tragic illustration of a twofold problem: the problem of oppressed nations and the problem of the oppression of immigrants. At the present time, the Kurdish people, scattered over several countries, are experiencing pitiless oppression which highlights the on-going struggle to force the government to respect the right to self-determination and to respect national minorities. Moreover, these tragedies that we have seen occurring on Spanish beaches or at Dover cannot result merely in our condemning the people who ship in the illegal immigrants. The Schengen area is a fortress which forces the victims of hunger or of political dictatorships to take illegal action. Yet everyone knows that no amount of policing can halt the flow of people who are in fear of their lives. Those who organise these shipments of illegal immigrants are now growing fat on these repressive laws, which in any case are a violation of the Geneva Convention. It is time to open up the borders to the free circulation of people, just as you have done for capital. We no longer want to see the spectacle of entire families entering Europe by paying large sums of money to risk their lives in decrepit old tubs.

Political group: GUE-NGL
. – I would like to ask a question about the use of Parliament's facilities by the in relation to the elections in the Basque country. Could you please pass this request on to the Presidency. I would like a straightforward answer about the use of this Parliament's facilities.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, we are absolutely astounded that the Commission has tabled a proposal to water down the stability criteria without first agreeing the matter with the European Parliament in the relevant committees. I would ask that we debate this Commission proposal as quickly and efficiently as possible here in Parliament, because the current position does not, I think, have the support of this House.

Political group: PPE-DE