GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, let me begin by saying that I very much endorse the Commission's communication and Commissioner Busquin's statements about the European Research Area. Let me also say to Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel that I congratulate her on her work, even though, as she knows, I regret the fact that, for reasons which I believe were often ideological, she rejected out of hand all the amendments I had tabled with the aim of improving the report. I want to tell her that I personally will be more generous than she was when we collectively draft the Sixth Framework Research Programme. With this document, the European Commission is, in effect, proposing guidelines for future measures to support research prior to the discussion on the Framework Programme for 2002­2006. Among these very interesting ideas, I want to take up one, which is and will be one of the leitmotifs of our debates. It is about the need to concentrate European research activity more closely on a limited series of priorities. The key concept here is that of European added value. I know it will not be easy to define these priorities, but I think European research will have everything to gain if we do so. In the same context, the innovations that will mark the Sixth Framework Research Programme are the networks of excellence and the integrated projects, concepts that are also bound to give rise to wide debate. The Commission document also addresses the question of the mobility of students, researchers and scientists. That will be one of the central themes of the Sixth Framework Programme and I know that the Belgian Presidency intends to organise a conference on the subject. I welcome that. I am glad that the role of the SMEs has been acknowledged. I approve the call for the inclusion of the human and social sciences under the Sixth Framework Research Programme. It is vital to hold a debate on science and society now that we are at the beginning of the third millennium. All in all, ladies and gentlemen, the communication from the Commission and Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel's report establish sound foundations for the major task on which we will be embarking together, on the basis of transparency, which also covers the field of controlled thermonuclear fusion. As rapporteur, I am now available to any colleagues who wish to join me as from this moment on in working on the Sixth Framework Research Programme.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, racism is indeed a scourge affecting our society. It is even one of the most appalling human failings, and no one has a monopoly on it. Often, it is the product of fear, ignorance, foolishness and selfishness, but also of institutional cowardice. If a society wishes to call itself truly civilised, it has a duty to track down, prohibit, punish and eradicate racism by means of education and prosecution. Europe wishes to be a civilised society, and has the opportunity every day to show that it is. Parliament is required to give an opinion on the European Union’s position at the World Conference Against Racism. Our position must be clear, intelligible and specific. Our position must be clear, without going into unnecessary details. Personally, I am all in favour of brief texts. It must be up-to-date, i.e. it must take account of the new means of communications which can also be used as media for the expression of racist views. Our position must be intelligible. That is to say, it must be structured around the major key ideas establishing a method: the identification of racism, particularly with the aid of our partners, the NGOs or our own monitoring centres, the punishment of racism, with the idea of zero tolerance and, of course, the prevention of racism. Our position must be specific. That is to say, beyond the universal value of the fight against racism, there must be a specifically European message, for, let us be clear about this, Europe has often been the home of racism. We can, moreover, even see the revival of racism in some European Union countries. In such instances we have a duty to remember and a duty to be vigilant. Our message must be an ambitious one. We must be a role model. As the Commissioner pointed out, we do not lack the resources to combat discrimination or racism in general. We are currently drawing up a Charter of Fundamental Rights, the first article of which prioritises human dignity. That, I believe, is the reason why the PPE has become involved in framing this text. We want to ensure that it is rid of all the pointlessly contentious dross to do with the current situation and free of any additions which do not contribute to the formulation of the text. In this, as the Commission, the Council of Ministers and Parliament, we have a shared responsibility and we want to be very scrupulous about this common approach, as Europe’s credibility, at this World Conference Against Racism, will depend, above all, on our assessment of the situation and on how credible we are on our own territory.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, I would like to support Mr Morillon's suggestion. I would like to emphasise – and I am now speaking on behalf of my group also – that we consider the Council Declaration on this subject to be very important, and I request you to forward it to the Conference of Presidents.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, Commissioner, owing to the bitter experience of the sinking of the Prestige, the Executive Commission is presenting us with a proposal for a modification of the Regulation establishing the European Maritime Safety Agency. We are in favour of increasing its competences, so that it can provide support in the field of marine pollution – accidental or deliberate – and in the field of civil protection, and so that systematic inspections can be carried out of the safety systems of ships and in port installations. We are also in favour of the Agency participating in the procedures for recognising qualifications in the maritime professions issued by third countries, to which I would add the power to approve devices which verify compliance with the Marpol rules and others, in order to prevent the waste from oil tanks or bilge oil from being dumped in the sea. Specifically, we believe that the European Agency must be provided with all the economic, human and material resources necessary to be able to carry out these functions properly. Firstly, it must have an emergency plan for cases of marine disaster which covers all coasts, from Gibraltar to Russia, and which can be deployed as required in the Atlantic Ocean, the Mediterranean, the Baltic, the North Sea, etc., including plans for dealing with the waste resulting from collection operations and the cleaning of fuel oils. It should also have a sufficient fleet of rapid intervention ships and specialised rescue ships, also with the capacity for pumping and transfer of fuel from any ship which finds itself in difficulties. And naturally it should have qualified personnel to verify the efficiency of control procedures and the application of safety rules and the prevention of pollution in European ports and ships which sail through Community waters, not just those which land on our coasts. I would like to thank Mr Mastorakis for his report and express our support for the Commission’s proposal, although we would have liked to have gone a little further.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I believe we are as one in our displeasure with the Commission. It is not acceptable for the Commission to act illegally, for them to put off the implementation of this decision, delaying it, and so on. Nor is it acceptable for them to look on and do nothing while the Member States endow their omissions with something like legitimacy. Now at last, what has been resolved upon – namely, a ban on the marketing of cosmetics tested on animals – must be put into effect with all force. The Commission is itself, after all, the guardian of the law, and as the guardian of the law, it must ensure that laws are implemented. Now the Commission, rather than guarding the law, is obstructing it. What you are achieving here will be catastrophic in its effect. It is precisely in terms of the great implementation deficit in our European Union that you are giving such a bad example that in future all the Member States will be able to point to the Commission and say: Look at that, even the Commission itself is incapable of implementing its own laws, preferring to make laws for itself, and set itself above the law. As Mrs Roth-Behrendt so rightly said, it acts illegally, bending the law to suit itself and contributing to the Member States' noticeably diminishing interest in putting the law into real effect. Therefore, Commissioner, I would like to reiterate, with as much emphasis as I can muster, that it is not acceptable for you to send out this calamitous signal; on the contrary, the Commission must change its ways, become the guardian of the Treaties and do everything in its power to really get the Member States to transpose this law, and not itself go and break current European law. That is not tolerable, and Mr Whitehead was right to say so. How on earth do you intend to get it across to the public that the Commission has failed to make any real effort to put into effect things that should have been done in the past? Quite apart from that, I find it positively absurd that the Commission is also stabbing the Conciliation Committee in the back, depriving it of fallback positions, and making something of a mockery of the work currently being done in Parliament. That the Commission should go so far as to do that really is unique in history. You can see how great is our displeasure, and I cannot expect us to do other than adopt this resolution by a large majority; I look forward to the Commission really seeing what an emphatic rebuke this is and realising how far-reaching is its significance. (Applause) IN THE CHAIR: MR DIMITRAKOPOULOSVice-President

Political group: Verts-ALE
Madam President, to clarify the situation, 29 amendments have been tabled together with a proposal to reject the common position. As rapporteur, I obviously support the amendments of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy. I also support all the amendments intended to restore the position adopted by the European Parliament at first reading. On the other hand, as rapporteur, I must clearly state that I cannot support the amendments which deviate too far from the position adopted at first reading. This concerns Amendments Nos 17, 16 and 19 in particular. Clearly, I also cannot support the proposal for rejection tabled by the Union for a Europe of Nations Group under Amendment No 8.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Madam President, the speech by the President-in-Office of the Council gives me the opportunity to remind him of two things: first, that this Parliament – as far as I know – has not given up on drafting a report on the number of Members of this Parliament in the Treaties. In other words, we might yet please him by providing this report he is so keen on. Secondly, the position of this Parliament has never been that the Charter was to be the preamble to the Treaties. This idea has appeared from somewhere but it is not the position of the European Parliament. When we talk of insertion we do not mean that we want it to be the preamble. In any event, Madam President, I believe that Biarritz has contributed something very positive, and that is the unanimous approval of the Charter. A second very positive thing was the adoption of the Charter in its entirety. It also seems possible to me – and we are talking about policy – not to put the Charter on ice, to use Mr Barón Crespo’s expression, but to entrust it to the Swedish Presidency for its incorporation to be studied. I believe that now, in this policy of forward movement, the inclusion in Article 6(2) of the Treaty on European Union is very important, as there is no sense – and I do not wish to be inconsistent – in the European Union deciding not to provide a legal basis in the Treaty for the Union to be able to adhere to the European Convention on Human Rights and, at the same time, talking in the same paragraph about the interpretation of fundamental rights based on this same European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights. It therefore seems that mentioning the Charter in the Treaty of Nice is something that makes perfect sense. I therefore believe that with the resolution on which we are voting tomorrow, we are giving a very clear mandate to our two representatives, Mr Brok and Mr Tsatsos, to enable them to present a proposal to this end at the Nice Summit.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, my group deplores the way this matter has been handled in the last few weeks. Both the vote in the Citizens' Rights Committee and the rapporteurs have been pushed aside and there has been a cosy stitch-up between the Presidency and the leadership of the two big groups. My group will uphold the committee agreement by voting for an opt-out system on directories to be possible. We will seek to take out the bureaucratic limitation that direct marketing e-mails can only be for products similar to those previously bought. But our main concern is the attempt by the Council and the big groups to confer broad powers to require telecommunications companies and Internet service providers to keep data which map people's daily lives and contacts, that is traffic, billing, location data and so on for possible access by law enforcement agencies. We do not disregard the case for some data retention for security practices, but we oppose its insertion in this directive because the huge implications both for industry and civil liberties are not adequately addressed in this context. It is dangerous and premature, and surely of doubtful legality as Mr Cappato said, to endorse a blanket EU regime of data retention as an add-on to a telecommunications single market package. Any imposition of these powers should be debated at national parliament level and then addressed in the context of EU cooperation on policing and crime-fighting, including guarantees for citizens' rights. This measure today, being an internal market directive, is part of the package designed to open up the EU market to competition and enable telecoms and ISPs to operate on a level playing field. That is why the original Commission proposal did not contain any reference at all to data retention, which was added by the Council. I would be interested to hear the Commissioner's response on that. We need a proper and extensive public debate. Slipping through these huge powers in the slipstream of a liberalisation measure is quite inappropriate.

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, this is the first time that we have received a report that pertains to a period for which the Prodi Commission is entirely responsible. Can we draw clear conclusions from it? No, not really. That is why my group hopes that the discharge procedure will eventually give us the answer to the following questions: which countries cause most problems, which areas of policy are most problematic and what can be done about this, where does the Commission carry out its tasks and where does it fail to do so, but also where have improvements been made and where has that not been the case? We can already detect some improvement. That is partly thanks to the commitment by this European Parliament, but also the Court of Auditors, for which we are very grateful. However, this is still not enough. Moreover, it is still not possible to issue a general Statement of Assurance, and the budget surplus is currently at an all-time high. Progress has thus been made in small ways, but that is not enough to really gain the confidence of the people in Europe. In the final analysis, that is what we all need to work towards.

Political group: ELDR
Commissioner, please allow me firstly to begin more or less at the end: I wish you all the luck in the world at the next ICAO Assembly. Please count on the support and backing of Parliament, and we hope that the European Union’s objectives on this issue are achieved. The European Union must be at the forefront by adopting a series of measures which do not only relate to the issue of this statement on air transport and the environment, but also to its effects on the quality of life of the citizens of the European Union. We must achieve some concrete and quantifiable objectives. And we must also achieve a timetable which makes realistic demands. Because otherwise, we will not achieve any of the objectives we have discussed so many times in committee relating to noise levels of aircraft, the situation – as Mrs Lucas has expressed very well – of the increase in the demand for air transport, the situation of certain airports which are not in a position to deal with the air traffic they are currently receiving, the measures proposed by you – by the Commission – such as taxes relating to noise, restrictions on the operation of certain types of aircraft within the European Union, or clear policies in relation to the use of land with regard to air transport. A second problem which I believe to be of concern is that of gas emissions. There is a lot of talk of the greenhouse effect, caused by CO2, when air transport could reduce its greenhouse emissions by between two and four times; I believe that, given the significance of this, we must take a clear and determined position in this regard. However, at the same time, neither can we forger what air transport has meant for the development of the Communities, for the economic development of the states and also for the quality of life of the citizens, for speed and for the opportunity to visit and discover other places. I believe that we need sensible, concrete and totally efficient measures which will genuinely improve the environment and the quality of life.

Political group: PPE-DE
I voted in favour of the Watts report, which aims to enhance the quality and frequency of inspections in the ports of the Member States of the European Union. The European Commission proposes to introduce a certain uniformity of inspection procedures and sets out the conditions under which access to the ports of the Member States of the European Union can be refused: these are the minimum conditions for a common policy on maritime safety. These provisions have the effect of strengthening safety checks on ships in our ports but do not make it possible to ban dangerous ships that do not drop anchor at one of our ports from sailing in our territorial waters. The limitations of these proposals are therefore clear. One can therefore deplore the fact that the Commission proposal has not taken up the idea of the establishment of a European surveillance body on the model of the coastguards in the United States. We will settle for setting up a European system of surveillance and information exchange between Member States. The European Parliament will have to ensure that the financial and human resources that are needed to effectively establish this rapid reaction and information exchange system are quickly made available by the Member States. I would point out that the European Union has some 270 inspectors charged with state port control. This figure falls far short of the number of inspectors needed to implement the measures we are proposing in ports. The rapporteur has put forward a number of proposals enhancing the binding nature and effectiveness of these inspections. I fully support the ban on navigation for ships which have been detained twice in the course of the preceding 2 years, irrespective of the age of the ship. However, I believe that this measure should be considered a minimum requirement and I hope that we will be able to go much further. To do so, we must be sure that the measures we are proposing today are implemented by all the Member States of the European Union. The responsibility for putting these measures in place rests therefore with the Member States. Without additional inspectors and without extra financial resources, the controls proposed in the ports will remain a fiction. We therefore call on the Member States to make a real commitment to maritime safety. - Hatzidakis report (A5-0344/2000)

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, once again we protest and call upon the Turkish Government to release a prisoner who is guilty of the desire to live in a country where democracy, rights and freedom are truly respected. Akin Birdal is not a Kurd. He is a Turk, a man of peace, condemned for speaking out about the Kurdish issue and calling for an end to this dirty war. His imprisonment is the product of an illiberal legal system, the abolition of which Turkish democrats are fighting for, a legal system which has made hundreds and hundreds of citizens suffer. No one who has met him could forget his smile and gentle nature. And yet he has had to endure great suffering. This is not the first time he has been arrested and an armed attack has been made on his life; he escaped with his life, but he was unable to leave the country and was rearrested. Leyla Azan is still in prison, and so are thousands of Kurds. When will this end? There is no justification for the behaviour of the Turkish Government. The KWP has stopped fighting and its leader, Mr Öçalan, is calling from jail for peace, reconciliation and recognition of the cultural identity of his people. The European Union has accepted Turkey’s candidacy and now the Turkish Government must respect our agreements and conventions. We must explore every possible avenue, save military interventions and embargoes, starting with a refusal to sell Turkey any more arms, so that, at last, democracy and freedom can be established in Turkey. (Applause) Tibet

Political group: GUE-NGL
Madam President, in this week dedicated to employment, I wish to draw your attention to the several thousand Portuguese workers who live in the worrying situation of great instability, with companies going bankrupt with impunity and no one being held responsible, even when it is known that they were viable and had healthy order books, which is what has happened at Molin, Confelis and Norporte. Despite Portuguese workers having the lowest wages in the European Union, there have recently been countless cases of companies not paying salaries on time, already involving more than E 20 billion and many thousands of workers. I would, in particular, highlight the situation at the Mandata e Mortensen glassworks in Marinha Grande, at the Sotima timber plant in Proença-a-Nova, at Cuftexteis, in Ansião, and the threats being levelled at hundreds of workers at the Eres textiles company in Fundão, because of their local and regional importance and because of the consequences for the development of the areas that are affected. Apart from showing some solidarity with these workers, Madam President, I should like you to inform the Commission and the Council of this serious situation that is affecting thousands of Portuguese workers. (Applause)

Political group: GUE-NGL