GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Increasing numbers of women and children are victims of – as you would expect – physical, but also psychological violence. It is women and children who suffer the most from violence, but we must not forget that men are also sexually exploited and also suffer. We must therefore put in place effective measures to combat all forms of violence, by combining prevention, punitive action and support for victims. The Daphne programme is an effective instrument and it must be further developed. The fight against trafficking in human beings must include penalties that act as a deterrent and that are common across all Member States. All NGOs must be actively supported and violence must be understood in the broad sense. All forms of violence must be opposed because violence is unacceptable. - Smet report (A5-0256/2002)

Political group: PSE
Madam President, Commissioner, I want to begin by thanking the rapporteur, Mrs Langenhagen, for her work on the report. I am taking the floor today because I feel we need technical systems that offer environmental benefits. Technical progress is ever more rapid. Personal computers and mobile telephones have drastically altered our working lives and our everyday life. We have also seen how technology is changing all the time and creating new aids and how companies are forever developing new products to be used within different areas of society. A European satellite navigation system can, in fact, mean major opportunities for developing the transport sector, especially when it comes to combined transport, dovetailing different types of transport. For aviation and shipping, too, as well as for transport by road and rail, the new technology can be used to make transport more efficient and environmentally friendly. I do agree with the rapporteur that GALILEO will enable Europe to be involved in developing a new technology-based industry and to be in the vanguard of this. There is a space industry in various parts of Europe today, for example in northernmost Sweden, and I think it important that we should use existing infrastructure to keep down the future costs of this project. Major technical breakthroughs have more often than not taken place following development using research supported by the public sector, often with a view to the research’s being used for military purposes. The money and resources needed for developing completely new technologies often do not exist in private companies. This particularly applies to the GALILEO project which is based upon joint financing by the EU countries but to which the private sector too has to contribute. What is unique about GALILEO, unlike the GPS system, is that it is being developed for civil rather than military purposes. I consider this to be an absolute prerequisite for the European Parliament’s supporting the project.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, I too am inclined to think that we should take a little look back in time. Who was it really that created Saddam Hussein? It was the United States, and they used him in the war against Iran. When Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons of mass destruction against his own people, the United States was informed of the fact. An American attack on Iraq would not only be an attack on an individual country. It would be an attack on international law and upon the whole UN system. That is why it is important for Mr Solana and Mr Patten to call upon all the Member States to stand shoulder to shoulder in the EU on this matter in order to safeguard international law and to ensure a future for the UN. I think that Great Britain and Spain, specifically, should be called upon to show that they too join with the EU in rejecting war. It would not of course be a war to disarm Iraq and introduce democracy there. Is it at all conceivable that the United States would install a Shia Muslim government in Iraq, reminiscent of the government in neighbouring Iran? Is that within the bounds of possibility? Could one imagine the United States allowing the Kurds their independence? Certainly, not much importance can be attached, then, to the talk of democracy. If the intention is to disarm Iraq, then that is the role assigned – rightly – to the weapons inspectors. If the desire is to disarm Iraq, it is a question of supporting the work being done by the weapons inspectors and Hans Blix. There is of course also the alternative of strengthening democracy in Iraq by removing the sanctions, other than those concerned with chemical and other weapons, including weapons of mass destruction. In that way, it would be possible to strengthen the Iraqi people and the democratic forces in Iraq, as well as democracy and peace for all of us. We also have another task. It is to ensure that the whole region is inspected and that we obtain a policy for disarming it: not only Iraq but also Iran and Israel. In conclusion, I want to state that we must urge Saddam Hussein to cooperate with the weapons inspectors so that we avoid a war. I believe that the way forward is through democracy, development and cooperation.

Political group: GUE-NGL
The problem we are working on here is, in reality, not only a European problem but also a global, cross-frontier problem. Really, we ought to be working for a global convention in this area, but the present proposal takes us some way down the road, for it is undoubtedly very important – as just about every speaker has agreed – that we recognise each other’s decisions on matrimonial issues and on matters concerning custody, especially at a time such as we are experiencing now where the structure of the family is undergoing tremendous change. In this connection, I can only express my pleasure at the fact that there are still a number of countries – including EU Member States – which recognise marriages between two people of the same sex and appreciate that such couples may also wish to have children and that this is a wish they can justifiably demand should be fulfilled. One can only hope that, in future where these matters are concerned, the motions of the heart will ever more be granted expression – as they have been in issues of divorce – and that the voices of religion and moralism will be hushed. My group can therefore back the report. As a Dane, I have a special problem, of course, when we talk about making decisions concerning legal questions under pillar 1, but I am certain that it is a problem which can be solved, for this is undoubtedly an area which Denmark also wishes to see put in order.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Madam President, on behalf of the Group, I would like to very much welcome Mr Beysen's report and also to thank him for the very clear and concise way he has presented the text. We entirely support his proposal to push this through without any amendments. Why are we supporting this so strongly? Anything in today's world that is going to simplify life for businesses without, as Mr Beysen points out, affecting some of the key business statistical information they need to plan their businesses has to be welcome. As someone who has founded and started small businesses himself, it is a very frustrating thing when you are trying to manage a business to be asked to fill in statistical returns, taking resources from your business that you could well be using on developing new sales and moving your business forward. Reading Mr Beysen's report, the history of this proposal is rather depressing. I was not in the last Parliament, and it is clear that Parliament has put a lot of work into this, but it has taken three years to get to the point where we are now. It may well be that Mr Beysen's report hides a deceptively complex set of variables that the Commission has had to deal with. Nevertheless, it seems to me that if we are going to make serious progress on slimming down legislation, making the environment for small businesses better – and that after all is an aim of the Lisbon Summit, we have seen that – we must get better at approaching these sort of projects. So, I would like you to assure us this evening that you are making a serious effort to move more quickly in this area; and also, given the benefits of new technology moving forward in this area, with many more business-to-business transactions being handled electronically, more business-to-government transactions being handled electronically, that you are planning to exploit that technology in such a way that statistics can in future be collected automatically. Both more reliably and automatically and also, as Mr Beysen says, 'internationally as well'. The final area, Commissioner, is to look at ways in which we can work with you as a Parliament to speed up the approval of the process. Surely it should not be taking this amount of time to work on largely technical areas. Mr Beysen was talking about the way that Parliament has been working internationally on some of these issues. Surely we should be setting our own house in order first. If you want a special committee within the Internal Market Committee to look at small business issues, simplification issues and statistical issues, then ask us to work with you and for heaven's sake let us not have to consider these proposals again when we had to wait three years to make serious inroads into what ought to be a comparatively simple area of progress.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, I have restricted myself to a single explanation of vote, and I hope the Presidency will, at least, allow me that one! I voted for the Brok report and, as representative of the Delegation to the EU-Bulgaria Joint Parliamentary Committee, I would like to point something out. There is a translation error in the French version of the explanatory statement. Indeed, “Bulgaria continues to fulfil the Copenhagen political criteria”, as stated in the original English version, as opposed to “is striving to fulfil” them. Moreover, I feel that it is important to stress that, from the political point of view, we should provide for all the candidate countries of Central and Eastern Europe to become Members of the European Union en bloc and for those countries which are economically behind to receive help once they have entered the Union. I feel that it is a political error not to accept all these candidate countries together. In particular, as regards Bulgaria, I am concerned that the closure of units 3 and 4 of the Kozloduy power station will affect the Bulgarian people badly, especially the elderly, the unemployed and young people in search of employment.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, I wish to begin by thanking the rapporteur and saying that the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party supports the report. Even though we may have different views on certain parts of it, we should be able to agree that this survey is useful and significant. I should nonetheless have liked to have seen more practical examples. Mr Cornillet, I wonder for what purpose we should have this report if we did not single out a number of countries. If the EU is to set an example to the world, we cannot put blinkers on and not put our own house in order. What credibility would we then have in the surrounding world? The question to the Commission and the Council is, of course: what practical measures are you taking to tackle the problems? I wish to comment on three areas. The first is the EU’s and the Member States’ asylum policy, which deserves to be criticised. There is a political anxiety whereby all the countries apparently feel able to compromise fundamental legal principles. Naturally, we must put an end to human smuggling and prevent the asylum system from being misused, but we cannot send refugees back to be tortured or ill-treated. We must give all children who find their way to the EU the chance of a life of dignity. There are many deficiencies in this area, including in my own country. The second area is prison conditions. We have overcrowded prisons, extensive violence and increasing problems involving ex-prisoners’ readjustment to society. Europe must have prisons that are fit for human beings. The third area concerns a sensitive but important issue. The EU Charter of Fundamental Rights states clearly and unambiguously that ‘[t]he freedom and pluralism of the media shall be respected’. I agree with Mr Eurig Wyn on this matter and wonder if it is perhaps an irony of fate that it is the Italian Presidency that is to get the Member States to agree upon a constitution that Italy, through its prime minister’s monopoly on the media, clearly and unambiguously violates. We cannot have this situation. I want, in conclusion, to ask you, Commissioner, what you are doing about this sensitive matter. The situation in the Italian media is the whole of Europe’s responsibility, including yours, Mr Vitorino.

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, Mr Markov has produced a sterling piece of work. His report examines rules that will simplify a very complicated area. Driving is one of the hardest and most pressurised jobs there is. The seat behind the wheel in buses and lorries is a back-breaking place of work. The simple new rules proposed by Mr Markov would ease the burden of work. It is to be applauded that Parliament can play a part in simplifying the rules. Assaults are one of the major problems encountered by drivers when they take rest breaks on European motorways. It is more urgent than ever to cooperate on preventing the increasing violence on our motorways. Finally, I wish to draw attention to increased safety on motorways. This is relevant not only to professional drivers but to all of us who drive on European roads. All too often, we have seen accidents caused by tired drivers. The simple new rules would mean that no one could be in any doubt as to when and for how long drivers were required to take rest breaks. It would be easier for the police to monitor that the rules were being complied with. I very much hope that the police would also increase the level of checks they made. I must also say that I am very surprised that the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party is giving more consideration to the cost of equipping lorries than to the deaths of 40 000 people each year on European highways. What the Group is displaying here is penny-pinching at its worst. They should be ashamed of themselves.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, I would like to send my greetings to a group of young people, who have not only the modest merit of coming from a town – Pontremoli, in the Lunigiana region – which is particularly dear to my heart and of which I am Mayor, but who I see as representative of the many young people who are looking to Europe. They have had their eighteenth birthdays this year, 2001, which is the year which has seen the most extreme world violence, but it is also the year in which many of the world’s young people have gained the ability to exercise their full rights and responsibilities in coming of age. I hope that this mediation operation, this firm moral message from Europe, will be a constructive witness for peace in the future for the young people of Europe and all the young people of the world.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, it seems to me that something is sorely missing from the report we have before us. I refer of course to the Native Americans, and by that I mean the indigenous peoples of this subcontinent. We tend to overlook them all too often, because they prick our conscience somewhat. How can we discuss relations with that part of ‘Latin’ America and fail to refer to these people? Where it did not wipe them out, our so-called civilisation reduced most of them to poverty. In its opinion, the Committee on Development and Cooperation has, quite rightly, highlighted this omission. To take an example, item 50 of paragraph g of the report envisages a financial contribution by the Union to the Puebla Panama plan. How can such an idea be entertained when the plan covers areas with a majority Native American population, in Chiapas and Guatemala, yet the American Indians have not been consulted? I would be hard put to vote in favour of this report.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the decision in principle to ban advertising for a product that is legally traded raises the question of what will happen in the future in competition law. If further decisions are taken here to ban advertising for sweets, cars and other categories of products, we will be faced with a problem with the market economy itself. You see, although these products are legal, it is not permitted to advertise them. What impact do you think this will have on other sectors – alcohol, for example – which also make a substantial contribution to financing motor racing, for example?

Political group: PPE-DE
I am not sure whether I have listened to everything with due care, but I thought that the Commissioner was also going to issue a detailed report on the nitrofen problem in Germany. I missed it. Is it scheduled for later? If so, with the President’s permission, I should like to ask a question on that subject.

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, Commissioner Fischler, I wish, first of all, to congratulate the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and, in particular its rapporteur, Mr Parish, on the timely initiative to bring the debate on this issue to the European institutions. It is 32 years since Sicco Mansholt, the Commissioner responsible for agriculture from the time the Commission was formed until 1972, presented his draft reform of the common agricultural policy, the Mansholt Plan. It is my view that the European institutions have not paid sufficient tribute to this great figure in European politics. I still read this classic work today and I still find that it contains many of the answers we need to the problems faced by young farmers, which are accurately described in Mr Parish’s report. We have created a major common policy based on support payments per hectare, per animal or even according to production achieved; we have limited production rights and established quotas; we have imposed complex mechanisms for standardising production and we have created intricate systems intervening in international markets. The results have been varied, with some positive aspects but with many other negative aspects. Amongst the latter, I would highlight the effect this policy has had in creating major problems for young people wishing to establish themselves in farming. The bold study drawn up on this issue by Parliament confirms that land is still the major investment for European farmers. The study also shows difficulty of access to land to be the main problem facing young farmers. According to this study, for each percentage point increase in subsidies for wheat crops, the price of land goes up by 0.4%. This effect is significantly magnified by quota systems and by production-limiting schemes. We cannot, therefore, contemplate the need to protect and support the modernisation and reinvigoration of agriculture unless we consider changes that could be made to the current CAP. The alternative to this model of agricultural policy will necessarily require a policy focused on farmers and their incomes and not on the produce, the land or the livestock by means of which the income is obtained. It will require an agricultural policy that is defined in regional rather than sectoral terms and will require priority for the environment, rural development, vocational training and early retirement. To conclude, I should like to suggest to Mr Parish and to the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development that this report should not be seen as a finishing line but rather as a point of departure for a thorough study into overhauling agriculture and reforming the common agricultural policy with the specific participation of young farmers’ associations. Revisiting the Mansholt Plan would be a good place to start. IN THE CHAIR: MR PACHECO PEREIRAVice­President

Political group: PSE
Mr President, I have the pleasure of having a nephew, Silvio Nardini, my sister’s son – he does not know that I am mentioning him in the European Parliament – whom I am very proud of because he is part of the European Force involved in a peace mission in Afghanistan: he is a ‘top gun’, as they say in films, but has his feet firmly on the ground. He said to me: ‘I have been and am in the United Arab Emirates controlling air traffic from Italy to Afghanistan. I am very happy and proud of what I am doing, and it is very satisfying. This is not war; it is about bringing peace and building on it where there is need’. This is why I voted, even more enthusiastically, for this report on Afghanistan.

Political group: PPE-DE
Madam President, aside from the letter of the report, I want to draw attention to a few of the numbers contained in it. First number: 700. Limiting the number of Members of the European Parliament to 700 would not be a cause for concern were it not that it would render our Parliament less representative. By marginalising small countries, while at the same time allowing high electoral thresholds to be set up in the largest ones, this sordid electoral mechanism would prevent whole sections of European society from being represented any more in this Chamber. We must reaffirm that it is our Parliament’s prime and absolute task to represent the people and the peoples of Europe in all their diversity. Second number: two thirds. Two thirds of the vote is the majority required for our Parliament to censure the Commission. This very high threshold of two thirds is a sad and unique case. For what European government can boast of being so safe from any real parliamentary control, of having such impunity? We must create a formal symmetry. If a simple majority is good enough for the investment of the Commission, then the same majority should suffice for a vote of no confidence. The people’s representatives have the power to undo anything they have done. That is the rule everywhere, and it must be the rule here too. Third and last number: 2009. The report proposes the year 2009 as the date for electing MEPs from transnational lists. Now this is a case of either or: either our Parliament decides this measure is not a good one, which would mean abandoning it – even in 2009 – or, like the , it must admit that such lists are vital if we want to create real families of thought in Europe, in which case this important political debate can begin by the time of the 2004 elections. Otherwise we would be being neither lucid nor ambitious enough. Nor does this report, which, without being bad, does not match up to the issues at stake, seem very lucid or ambitious. In changing size, the European Union will change in nature. So our continent will have to rethink its rules rather than simply tidy them up. This timid IGC 2000 can in no way represent an end result, but only the first step towards a constitution.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, Commissioner, I would like to make a few brief comments with regard to our joint resolution. We are discussing night flights, noise pollution and especially sleeping disorders. As a researcher who has examined the social effects of industrial labour, especially shift work, for years, I appreciate – and this has also been adequately proven scientifically – the seriousness of sleeping disorders and lack of sleep. Against this background, the entire discussion is relatively serious, bearing in mind Mrs Oomen-Ruijten’s comments on “the brink of the night” and the way we are discussing noise pollution, and the lack of harmonisation. In the foreseeable future, we will discuss at great length the more general aspects of aviation and the environment within the committee, including the common noise classification schedules, how to provide economic incentives in connection with noise and how to achieve aircraft noise standards. However, one thing is still lacking from the discussion, namely that we will need the political courage to talk about restrictions, bans if necessary, for night flights during a certain period and reach common agreements on this.

Political group: Verts-ALE