GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Mr President, although we held a very interesting debate, it was still somewhat one-sided, to my mind. Reference was made repeatedly to both New York and Porto Alegre. In my opinion, both forums are one-sided. If you only had ears for what was said at New York, then too much attention would go to the Enrons of this world, to the detriment of the poor. If, on the other hand, you were to focus on what has been said at Porto Alegre, the economy would soon grind to a halt, for people would then forget to conduct business and that not everything can be solved with Tobin Taxes and magic potions of this kind. That is simply impossible. The majority in this House has therefore repeatedly rejected the Tobin Taxes. This is why we are pleased with the Commission’s conclusions on this score. So are there no problems at all? There are, but we should not overlook the fact that governance in the countries themselves forms one of the crucial problems. At the moment, we have two examples to illustrate this. One is Afghanistan, where we noticed that the Taliban did not particularly contribute to the development of that country, or their environment. But in Zimbabwe, where elections are currently being held, Mr Mugabe does not contribute to the development of his country either. It is, of course, impossible to expect the international community to rectify the errors of the Taliban and Mugabe overnight. That is a big problem. Unfortunately, the majority of the leaders in this world are still dictators or quasi-dictators, and it saddens me that this is sometimes overlooked. If, therefore, local government fails to deliver the goods, if the rule of law in a specific country is not respected, then it is simply impossible to expect economic development. This is absolutely out of the question, and anyone who thinks differently believes in fairy tales, in my view. In this connection, quite a few fairy tales have been told here, not by everyone, of course, but by quite a few. Well, if you accept that, then you can also appreciate the restrictions that are simply inherent in international governance. National governance must be in order, including our own national governance and our European governance. This is why so much is riding on Barcelona. If we achieve good results there, we will enhance our contribution. This does not mean that things will automatically improve globally, but it does mean that we can, at any rate, make our contribution. It is in this light that we should see this, and miracle remedies such as the Tobin Tax would not be effective, because we would then be automatically funding the Mugabes of this world, which would be totally unacceptable and a waste of taxpayers’ money.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, I cannot help observing that we have ended up with two directives after all, just as we suggested at the beginning. May I congratulate all my colleagues on their hard work with the Commission and Council in achieving this compromise result. It is a tribute to the effective working of our committee. We have not achieved all we want. Past experience on previous directives shows that a foot in the door can and does lead to more opening than expected. My particular interest is in the interaction between market opening and liberalisation and the issue of security of supply. It needs to be said that more effective markets make for more efficient use of energy, and that is an essential element in maintaining security of supply. We should also stand back from the details to remember the purpose behind these measures. First and foremost, it is about choice, better value and better service to consumers of energy, both domestic and commercial. Experience shows that competition drives these objectives forward, and we have seen the benefits in lower prices and improved service in the UK. We need to see more improvement throughout Europe before we can say that we have done enough. We have learned over the past 15 years that progress in liberalisation cannot be achieved all at once and a step-by-step approach is more likely to lead to a better outcome in the end. I would like to advise the Commissioner that the Kangaroo Group working party on energy liberalisation is presently discussing the next steps we need to take in order to address the shortcomings not fully addressed in the current proposals. We must not think these directives and regulations are the end of the process.

Political group: PPE-DE
The Commission's proposal follows on from the 1992 revision and abides by the philosophy of reducing intervention prices by 5.9% and partly compensating for these reductions with direct per-hectare aid. This proposal serves the interests of the wheat trading and processing industries by ensuring they have cheap raw materials. At the same time, wheat producers' incomes are being reduced, because there is 50% rather than full compensation, prices and compensation remain constant and are not adjusted on the basis of average Community inflation and, finally, with the proposal to abolish monthly increases in the intervention price, the average intervention price is being reduced. The amendments proposed by the rapporteur of the European Parliament move in a more positive direction than the Commission's proposals, with the exception of the reference to durum wheat which is, however, regulated under another regulation. In essence, however, they move in the same direction as the Commission's proposal and only differ on quantitative elements, without contesting or proposing measures which reverse the Commission's basic philosophy, and this, despite the correct findings, ultimately renders the report ineffective, the gilding on a policy which favours the interests of the multinationals at the expense of small and medium-sized farmers.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, Mr Vice-President of the Commission, since 1994, when I was elected to the European Parliament, I have heard many a debate on the frightful problems facing the European railways and I imagine that many such debates were also held before I was elected. Despite the fact that we have known about the problem for years, I think that the compromise now being debated as a result of the conciliation between the European Parliament and the Council is perhaps the first major decisive step towards the creation of a proper new, unified rail transport network and towards much needed liberalisation – much needed in my view, Mr President, because this is how we can support the competitiveness of the European railways, which have been on the decline for years without our being able to do anything substantial about it. Surely, everyone involved in this issue will want to give praise where praise is due, i.e. to the European Parliament and, of course, the Commission, for the simple reason that they have been urging the Council for years to take the action which it has, I think, now been forced to take – action which will certainly benefit European citizens, consumers, rail passengers and rail freight customers. I remember that when a compromise was reached between the 15 ministers, the Helsinki Council felt that it had come to the end of the line as far as the liberalisation of the railways and the new institutional framework are concerned. It is significant, I think, that Parliament, with the Commission's help, has managed to change Council's mind, giving us a far better compromise than the Helsinki compromise. I do not intend to go into the details, because the two rapporteurs, who know the subject inside out and whom I should like to congratulate on the results of the compromise, have already done so; I should merely like to reiterate how important the clause on further liberalisation of rail transport is and to point out that, generally speaking, there will be no exemptions or derogations for the Member States – unless absolutely necessary because of the nature of the Member States or their position on the map. I should like to close, Mr President, with a wish: that from now on the Council will operate with greater transparency, that it will talk to the rapporteurs early on, that it will attend European Parliament committees not simply to strengthen the role of the European Parliament but so that faster decisions can be taken, faster than the 16 kilometres an hour which is the present average speed of the railways.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, forgive me for insisting: in this House we have discussed every imaginable subject but we have still not held a specific debate on the issue of world hunger. If we do not do anything now, a million people are condemned to die in a few months, but if we continue to do what the international community has done up until now, these famines will reoccur cyclically. We cannot continue to send agricultural surpluses which are constantly destroying the fragile agricultural economies of these countries. We have carried out ‘everything but arms’; this is laudable, but entirely insufficient. We therefore need a specific, in-depth debate, which will lead to forward-thinking decisions in accordance with our current needs. (Applause)

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, I should like to congratulate Mrs Paulsen on the way she has handled this complex matter and, as Mr Goodwill said, has brought the committee once again to a consensus. My group commends her approach and will support the bulk of the amendments which have been tabled in the Committee on the Environment. I should like to make one or two points on the nature of the scourges we face. Mr Goodwill said that we have had these two great disasters but there is a third disaster which produced them. That was the indifference, and sometimes the greed, of those who stood by while the methods of rendering animal waste and feeding it back to animals became more and more extensive and the potential for disaster therefore even greater. So this is not a moment when we can happily contemplate the intra-species recycling of animal protein or indeed anything which brings about a further degree of risk in our agricultural system. We are still learning from the foot-and-mouth epidemic in the United Kingdom. In regard to the disposal of animal waste we have found that one attempt to avoid risk has faced us with another risk. When we look at incineration, when we look at burial and look at the hazards, created by the 1% of farms that have still been using swill for pigs, we see additional risks on each side. That is why I too support the idea of looking at alternatives which minimise risk. Alkaline hydrolysis is one such method. We need to be able to show that we are ahead of this particular scourge. The problem in the past was that we were like countries preparing for the last war and not the next one. We are constantly struggling with the element of unknown risk. Mrs Paulsen's proposals have gone a long way towards improving what the Commission has tried to do in relation to the disposal of TSEs.

Political group: PSE
draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism. – Madam President, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, I thank the rapporteur, Mr McCartin for his report and efforts and, in particular, for the way in which he highlighted the major concern of my committee, namely the slow rate of implementation of the Community's structural funds. As he so rightly highlighted, that is the bulk of the problem in terms of the surplus that this Parliament is addressing. The question to which my committee failed to receive a satisfactory answer from the Commission, was why do we allow such a situation to develop in the first place? It was predictable that in the first year of the structural fund programmes rates of implementation would be very low. Yet we were faced with wholly unrealistic budget forecast expectations and scenarios which, by definition, could not be fulfilled. So we are dealing with a situation where, in many areas, there has been almost no expenditure whatsoever under certain budget lines for the Community's structural funds. We believe this makes it much more difficult for this Parliament and my committee to scrutinise the budget adequately and rigorously. As a regular item on our committee agenda, we have now decided to focus on budget scrutiny and, at each discussion, we invite the Commission and the Council to participate with us in a thorough review of expenditure within the structural fund area. But that job is made very difficult by these wholly unrealistic budgets. The Commissioner must explain how we are expected properly to evaluate a budget which is in itself extremely questionable. Our second concern really relates to the second point the rapporteur made in his opening remarks – the way in which the structural funds are currently managed. We share his concern that the regulations are overly complex and make our job, as a Parliament, of scrutinising the budget very difficult. So we have a double problem there. Many organisations, individuals, groups, associations and communities that are eligible for structural funds fail to receive their fair share because of the over-complexity of the application process. We, as a Parliament – and the other authorities charged with monitoring budgetary expenditure – have a problem in that we cannot adequately monitor expenditure to ensure value for money. My final point concerns the trans-European networks. We reiterate our view that the Commission is right to focus on fewer projects but we oppose the fact that the Commission is now planning to make a EUR 60 billion addition to the trans-European network transport budget line. We invite the Commission to comment on how they can ensure value for money when they are planning such a massive increase in expenditure.

Political group: PSE
I certainly share the concern that Enrique Barón Crespo has raised at the failure of the Justice and Home Affairs ministers to reach agreement on the proposal for a European arrest warrant. I note, however that, in addition to Mr Verhofstadt's planned visit to Rome, there will be an extraordinary meeting of the Justice and Home Affairs ministers on Thursday of this week. It must be hoped that agreement can be reached on that occasion. The House anticipated that an agreement might not be reached and recommended at least consideration of the use of Article 40 of the Treaty which would allow a number of countries to proceed on the basis of reinforced cooperation. Nobody wants that solution; it must be hoped that we can reach agreement between 15, but, one country must not be allowed to hold up progress in the fight against terrorism called for by the Heads of State and Government in Ghent. (Applause from the left and the centre)

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, now that we have arrived at the final decision on the EU’s Budget for 2001, we can say that we have come through a year of constant struggle to produce the Budget successfully within the framework devised when the financial perspective was adopted in Berlin in March 1999. We can now say that this struggle has been successful. We shall be able to adopt a Budget within this framework, which is a great success. I believe, in actual fact, that both the Member States and the taxpayers are grateful that the charges are not still higher. I also see it as a clear success that we are able to go into a new Budget year with a greater margin than in the past. When we make use of 1.06 per cent of the Member States’ GDP, this gives us a margin greater than ever before and greater than that predicted in Berlin less than two years ago. This gives us an opportunity to be an active partner where enlargement to include the countries in Central and Eastern Europe is concerned and when it comes to helping establish peace and prosperity in Serbia and the former Yugoslavia. For all this to be possible, there will have to be extensive prioritising in the future, too. This will be necessary if we are successfully to honour our long-term commitments, something which is clearly possible if our objective is to work for an EU which is strong but, at the same time, circumscribed. As I see it, there is a major threat in the present-day situation, namely BSE. It is nonetheless important to note that we must cope successfully with this too within the current Budget framework. This means that, if the solution to the problem requires still more money, this must be provided by means of other savings in Category 1 or through the Member States’ accepting a larger portion of the cost.

Political group: PPE-DE
Madam President, I do not know if you remember, but, a couple of months ago, I severely criticised the fact that we Danes were being treated unfairly. We did not have the opportunity to watch Danish television. I asked you and Mrs Banotti to look into the matter, and I should like to say that Mrs Banotti has again shown that she is good at these matters. The Danes among us have now got Danish television again. We are over the moon and, as Mrs Banotti can see, I am celebrating the fact in my national colours – a red jacket and a splendid white shirt from the Håndværker Bank in Næstved. So you can see that we are really happy to have got Danish television. ***

Political group: PSE
Mr President, on behalf of the Liberal Democrats, I would like to say that we are very satisfied by this Sharm el-Sheikh Memorandum which will strengthen the tiring peace process in the Middle East, and we hope that it will bring it to a conclusion. In the Liberal Democrats’ opinion, Europe must continue to give its firm backing to the peace process and cooperation in the Middle East. But it must make commitments, not just on an economic level, but also on a political and cultural level and acquire a stature and political weight recognised in the region and the rest of the world. However, in defending the right to self-determination we believe that all parties must be urged to make real commitments against terrorism to ensure people’s security.

Political group: ELDR
The current proposal from the European Commission is intended to compensate beef and veal producers for the huge instability that the market has suffered in recent months as a result of the successive crises to have hit the sector. I understand the reasons behind this proposal and especially its timing, but I think it is quite inadequate, for the following reasons: first of all, I find it unacceptable that the special premium for male cattle should be reduced, if only temporarily. For the sake of reducing production, this measure would penalise Member States that are still net importers of meat, which is the case of my own country. Secondly, it is hard to understand the creation of the special system of intervention buying for meat from animals over thirty months old either from the point of view of consumer confidence or that of cost, given that, even in a few months, it will still be impossible to dispose of meat that is stockpiled now. It would be more sensible to buy these animals in order to destroy the meat. Thirdly, encouraging extensive production makes sense but this must be accompanied with a special premium entitlement for small farms, which will not benefit from these incentives because they cover too small an area. We are insisting once again on applying the ‘one size fits all’ approach, as if all farms had the same capacity to adapt and to survive. Finally, authorising organic farmers to use set-aside land for fodder – the subject of Mrs Auroi’s report – can only be seen as symbolic at a time when producers are facing increased feed costs for their livestock. Why are we not allowing farmers to use set-aside land for protein crops?

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur on this report. We, in the , welcome the thrust of the report, because it grapples with the real issues and it avoids the sort of populist solutions which, I am afraid, are on offer in many of the amendments before this House. I am particularly thinking of the Tobin tax. It is, of course, the case that nobody, particularly liberals in favour of free inquiry, could object to the Commission's study on this subject. But I frankly believe that this is a false promise which really offers very little practical benefit to the countries that we are all, I hope, trying to help. Instead, the report quite correctly identifies as a potential model, the Chilean deposit system, which introduces an incentive for investors to invest long-term in an emerging market rather than going for short term paper because that involves a longer-term investment for depositors. That is the right way to go, and therefore I very much congratulate the rapporteur and hope that we will not support the amendments to an excellent report.

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, I think we also have to thank Mrs Fontaine. In the Spanish press we have read an article which, I believe, is a good reflection of the feelings of this Parliament against the death penalty. I do not know if it has appeared in the press in other countries in Europe. Secondly, I should like to recall here, Mr President, that on the other two occasions on which I spoke against the death penalty I talked about a Spaniard who was on death row in the United States, Joaquín José Martínez. I had the chance to talk to him and his parents last week, and among other chilling details that they told me was the 100 million pesetas that they had to raise to have their son released. This is a common situation for minorities in the United States. I confess that I never thought he could be released, and I am delighted to have seen him here alive. The death penalty in my view is barbaric, Mr President. Eighty-eight per cent of these death penalties are concentrated in four countries, and so Europe must talk to these countries to get them to stop murdering each other legally. Our presence in the United Nations should also be used, as it always has been, to come out against the death penalty.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, I congratulate the Commissioner on having brought the accession countries to a stage where fewer than 40 serious concerns were raised out of the 140 elements of the acquis. Most of those concerns are in the area of health and food legislation, or of public administration. Without making light of the concerns, is the Commissioner confident that the obstacles can be overcome by next May? Moreover, on Bulgaria and Romania, a clear difference is emerging. I should like to ask the Commissioner whether he will give the clear signal that Sofia has asked for on the Union's final requirements, and whether he will be tough with the Romanians on the very substantial progress that Romania still has to make. I welcomed the Commissioner's remarks on Turkey. The reforms of Prime Minister Erdogan's government are real and must be welcomed. They must be fully implemented; Commissioner, you are right to demand more, particularly regarding political rights and Cyprus. But let us acknowledge Turkey's very strident steps forward and I hope that the Commission will commit itself to finding all of the resources possible for working with Turkey to help it towards membership.

Political group: ELDR