GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Mr President, the past few years have proved to be difficult for Turkey as a society and in the field of employment. It has suffered a financial crisis, earthquakes, drought and a terrorist attack. This has obviously had a knock-on effect on the people's social situation and their prosperity. The general level of prosperity in Turkey, expressed in purchasing power, is under 23% of the EU's level. Compared to five years ago, the gap has widened, because in 1997, that level was just over 30%. Unemployment has increased and fluctuates between 9% and 10%. The level of employment is lower than 50%, while this is above 60% in the European Union, although we endeavour to achieve 70%. There are two explanations for this drop in employment. Women do not work; only one in four women has a job and many semi- and unskilled rural women opt to stay at home given the lack of opportunities to work. There is also growing informal employment, partly the result – however paradoxical this may sound – of rigid labour legislation. The laws on dismissal are very strict, with the result that employers try to bypass these laws by recruiting illegal workers. Child labour also remains high. It is estimated that there are still 750 000 working children. According to Eurostat, a quarter of the Turkish population has an income below 60% of the average. The level of poverty therefore remains high and the indices for the social situation are thus not terrific. That does not detract from the fact that Turkey has made huge efforts. It has developed labour legislation and has made provision for the unemployed. Efforts are thus being made, but it should be noted that these, as a result of the crisis and the lack of investments, have had little impact on the social situation. I support Turkey's application to join the European Union on the conditions that were agreed in Copenhagen. I therefore hope that we can all help Turkey take that step.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, thank you for giving me the opportunity to express to the House our sadness at the news that a young Spanish aid worker, a 22–year-old from Toledo, Ana Isabel Sánchez Torralba, was killed last night in Equatorial Guinea. According to the news, she has clearly been the victim of shots from soldiers of that regime who, in an unjustifiable and criminal action, opened fire on a civilian vehicle which had just crossed a military checkpoint. Mr President, I believe we are looking at an action which demonstrates the behaviour of forces of law and order which are accustomed to maltreating and attacking citizens. We will undoubtedly ask the corresponding questions, but I would like, as well as expressing our indignation, condemnation and condolences, to say that I believe the Council of the Union must take whatever measures are necessary to demand responsibilities, clarity and justice from this dictatorship which contains these elements capable of murdering this truly exceptional young woman.

Political group: PSE
draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market. – Mr President, I should like to congratulate Mr Menrad and Mr Mayer on their reports. I would also like to back up what Mr Mayer said about the legal base. He is quite right. We have had people playing fast and loose on the whole question of the legal base. We started off with Article 95 as legal base and we have moved on to Article 308 because it suited certain people. That is wrong and Parliament is right to say that at some future date we should be challenging this in court. Concerning the opinion of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market on Mr Menrad's report on the information and consultation of workers, I take the two examples of Corus and BMW Rover. The first thing workers knew about the situation they were facing was when they were driving into work and they heard it on the radio. In this day and age that is totally intolerable. Workers should be informed at the very start about the situation pertaining to their jobs because they are part and parcel of that company. I should know. I remember many years ago I turned up at my place of work to find that the gates of the factory were locked and all of us were standing outside. We were told by someone who was sent out that we had all been made redundant. I remember that quite clearly because the people who owned the factory still lived in big houses, still drove big cars and still went on holidays. I was a worker in the factory and nine months later I had not received any redundancy money: all I got was my back pay. That is the sort of situation workers should not be faced with ever again. That is why I congratulate Mr Menrad on taking this small step on the information and meaningful consultation of workers because it is a step in the right direction. It is not perfect. It will come back and we will improve it. However, it is a step in the right direction and I support it.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, the European Council has taken an historic and welcome decision on enlargement of the European Union, but what a pity that it did not seize the opportunity to take another historic decision in radically reforming the common agricultural policy. The EUR 40 billion a year that the European Union spends on the CAP is an expensive way to distort our farming industry. British citizens, who already contribute disproportionately to the EU budget, pay twice for the CAP: once through their taxes, and again in the supermarket. An opportunity for early reform has been lost. The question of European defence policy was also addressed by the European Council. The United Kingdom has a special interest and responsibility in this area. After all, it was the British Prime Minister who gave the green light to this misguided policy in 1998 and now he has promised significant elements of Britain's already over-stretched armed forces to fill any capability gaps given the complete lack of willingness on the part of most other European countries to upgrade their defence capabilities in any meaningful way. At the very moment when we should be concentrating on meeting the terrorist threat and on possible conflict with Iraq, the defence annexes to the Presidency Conclusions are Ruritanian in their complexity and in their irrelevance. To add to the confusion and waste, European allies are now toying with two separate sets of military capability improvements: those for NATO and those for the European Union. Resources are scarce and the last thing we need is two different sets of capability goals. For over a year now, diplomatic and military staff energy has been wastefully expended on negotiating EU access to NATO resources. This is an entirely self-generated problem which, furthermore, raises unnecessary difficulties for key allies such as Turkey. We now have the very dangerous involvement of the European Convention in defence matters. One of its working groups is examining ways in which even collective defence, a core task of NATO, might become a European Union responsibility. What signal does this send to our American allies? Perhaps more significantly, what signal does this send to potential enemies? What a pity it is that the Council and the Commission do not focus their efforts on putting the European Union house in order before enlargement instead of grandiose political schemes.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission's proposal brings some improvements. It enhances the protection for employees who file complaints about discrimination. For the first time, it defines sexual harassment in the workplace as discrimination on grounds of sex, and it recognises the special protection granted to women due to their biological condition. One thing is clear, and with all our good intentions we must take this into account: all the rights conferred by the directive must be open to scrutiny by the courts, and therefore the employer can also only be held to account if he was informed, for example, about incidents of sexual harassment in the workplace. There must be scope to include the existing agencies, such as equal opportunities officers or works councils, in the delivery of equal opportunities. They must be able to act within the terms of the amended directive so that there is no need to set up new bodies at substantial staffing and financial cost. Monitoring and building on the results achieved is important, but here too, effective record-keeping can be expanded at national level in line with the directive so that the Commission is able to draw up European statistics. The call for annual equal opportunities reports would impose a disproportionately heavy financial burden on small and medium-sized undertakings. Women who bear children enjoy special protection in law. In this respect, a great deal has been achieved in the Member States of the European Union over the years. The European directive on maternity protection contains clear provisions here. I do not oppose the inclusion of fathers, quite the contrary. However, I do oppose the sloppiness of the approach here, and the fact that maternity rights and paternity rights are treated as identical. There is one minor difference. Children are born to mothers, not fathers. By the very nature of things, we must therefore be able to differentiate. In this respect, the proposal is not very well thought out. We want equal treatment; we want equal opportunities in society, work and employment. Those are our stated goals. However, we must be very careful to achieve a balance so that women's jobs remain attractive now and in future.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, this debate is not entitled hooligans but Euro 2000, and this is great. The whole of Europe managed to stage a huge festival of football where the Belgian and Dutch authorities were the first to back this idea and which attracted huge numbers of football supporters from Europe. Everyone was terribly concerned about violence and trouble and such like. In practice, the festival turned out to be a huge success all-round, and this resolution rightly mentions that we should congratulate the Dutch and Belgian authorities on this achievement. There is also a small group of hooligans which has been operating for a while and which clearly aims to spoil this kind of festival. They managed to do this to a very limited extent. And they still manage to do this at some level. This costs a great deal of money, is a real nuisance and we therefore endorse this resolution. We also back the initiative from the Belgian and Dutch Home Affairs Ministers, which attempts to introduce travel bans for this kind of hooligan when high-risk events are due to take place. Thirdly, I should like to mention the Italian incident. What is clear is that MEPs have received information from a variety of sources about the incident at De Kuip Stadium in Rotterdam and as a result, some have the impression that the situation got out of hand in a big way and that the incident was terrible, and they formed their opinions based on this information. Others, who gained their information from other sources, have the impression that the situation got out hand there but not to such a reprehensible extent. As a Dutchman, I would have liked to see the Netherlands become the European champions, of course, and I congratulate the French warmly on their victory. What I would say though is that if some delegates here got the impression, based on footage they saw, that certain incidents got out of hand, then I do not think – and the same goes for the Netherlands – that we should (a) tar the whole of Euro 2000 with the same brush, and (b) act as if the whole festival was ruined as a result. What we should do is recognise that something is wrong and ask for all the facts to be made known. I am therefore very much in favour of the Dutch authorities launching a thorough inquiry. Fortunately, Prime Minister Kok has assented to this and I would like to pass my final verdict on the basis of these facts. I should right away like to express my sympathy and concern for our Italian fellow MEPs at this stage. This goes without saying, but I do want to wait until I have all these facts at my fingertips before I pass judgement.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, I would like to begin by congratulating Mr Wuori not only on his report and its recommendations, but also because it reminds us of all the atrocities which are still being committed in the world. It is normal for us to make our aid to third countries conditional upon their respecting human rights and, naturally, we must continue urging them to do so and putting pressure on them until they do so, but, while we do not make the same demands of the larger countries, we will not deserve to consider ourselves the world reference point for the defence of human rights. Again and again we threaten the United States when it executes a person, when it murders a human being according to its laws. But it goes no further than these words which, though forceful, are nevertheless only words. They sentence to death minors, the mentally handicapped, blacks, Hispanics; in short, the poorest people. In the statement on the Gothenburg Summit, we have once again called on the United States to establish a moratorium on the death penalty, we have once again expressed our regret that it appears in their federal law and that in 38 of their jurisdictions citizens are executed in the name of the law. We need to apply even more pressure. Cases such as that of Joaquín José Martínez lead us to be more optimistic about the influence of the European institutions and, in particular, our Parliament. We must continue to fight to defend and extend the values of European civilisation. Without liberty, without tolerance, without respect for human rights, there is nothing. A country may be a great economic power, it may even be the envy of many others for its missiles, its strength, its powers of veto, but, if human rights are not respected and enforced, it is a society without values, an under-developed society. This very morning, President Verhofstadt said that when Europe speaks and speaks in unison, we are heard. We must therefore continue to exert pressure, ladies and gentlemen. Yesterday also, before the Committee on External Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, the President of Peru, Alejandro Toledo, reminded us that democracy has no borders and human rights have no colour. Neither, ladies and gentlemen, should they have a cheque book.

Political group: PSE
Madam President, I have noticed that there are not just a few minor linguistic errors. Entire paragraphs of the text are different. It looks like the translator has translated a different text. Please could this be checked. And I should like to take this opportunity to say that errors have crept into Greek translations on other occasions. If you spoke Greek you would understand what I am about to say. In one section, the words tuberculosis and malaria have simply been transliterated into Greek instead of using the Greek terms.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, I would like to start by congratulating the rapporteur on bringing together into his report the different strands of opinion that were expressed in the debate. It is significant that after much debate in committee only one additional amendment has been tabled over and above those adopted in committee. I am one of those who accepted the argument for the need for a regulation to give effect to and make binding the voluntary code on guidelines for good practice agreed at the Madrid forum, and I and my Group therefore support this proposal for a regulation. The rapporteur states the case very well in his explanatory statement and I can do no more than commend his analysis to colleagues and make a recommendation to adopt. We must recognise that the industry was not of one view on this matter, with the incumbent network or transmission system operators resisting change, while most of the other operators, be they upstream or downstream, strongly endorsed the underlying principle embodied in the Commission proposal. This measure should assist new entrants. In order for competition to flourish and for benefits to flow from it in terms of better service to consumers, greater efficiency as regards both energy and market forces, enhanced security of supply, greater flexibility and increased innovation, there must be a clear regulatory framework. This measure takes us a long way towards genuine and full liberalisation and I congratulate the rapporteur and the Commissioner on their efforts in this regard. IN THE CHAIR: MRS LALUMIÈREVice-President

Political group: PPE-DE
There can be no doubt that the Spanish authorities have a great deal to answer for over the shipwreck of the Prestige. The report itself, although it is very much lacking in some areas, is highly critical of the Spanish authorities, and in particular of the statements made by Spanish leaders and of the failure to make the conclusions of the investigations more widely known. It is also positive that the report emphasises the need for more attention to be paid to the maintenance of ships and to their condition, even in the case of double-hulled vessels, which may represent a greater potential hazard; that it advocates agreements under the auspices of the IMO on the speedy and independent investigation of shipping disasters; that it calls on the coastal Member States to establish a clear and independent decision-making and command structure for dealing with maritime emergencies; that it calls for an investigation of the scope for introducing mandatory insurance; for financial compensation for places of refuge; for a system of penalties to combat illegal discharges; for an audit of the classification societies; and for the Member States to transpose the relevant Community directives and to ratify the international conventions; for the training of seafarers; and to retain the dignity of the seafaring professions. I regret, however, that the report does not mention improvements in workers' social conditions and that our proposals to abolish flags of convenience, to make all parties responsible for the payment of damages, and to support investigations of the authenticity of maritime certificates issued, were rejected. We hope that these amendments, which we have tabled once again, will be accepted in the plenary.

Political group: GUE-NGL
We voted for this resolution because, amongst other things, it calls upon the Barcelona Council to take the decisions of the Gothenburg Council on a sustainable development strategy and the annual assessment by the EU on this strategy into consideration, whilst pointing out that the next ‘Rio+10’ conference in Johannesburg offers a crucial opportunity to fully defend the principles of sustainable development on a worldwide scale. It indicates that the environmental pillar of sustainable development should be as important as the social and economic pillars, in addition to referring to various issues which expand on the need to include environmental policy in the EU’s other policies. With regard to Amendment No 10, which refers to the concern at the unsustainable nature of several water management programmes, specifically the Spanish National Hydrological Plan, we voted for all its points, although in the end only part of it was approved.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, it is ten years since our Heads of Government discussed sustainable development at a summit meeting. That is a disgracefully long time. The Commission has submitted a good document, but why did the Swedish Presidency remove this Commission proposal to stop subsidising fossil fuels from the draft conclusions even before the Heads of Government arrived in Gothenburg? Why are they acting so cowardly? Why is Sweden scrapping sustainable development even before the Summit has started? The European Parliament voted by a 95% majority for Europe to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, even without the United States. I urge the Heads of Government to make it clear to President Bush that it is irresponsible for any country to remain outside the Kyoto Protocol. It is bad enough that the United States still imposes the death penalty, as it has again this week, but that is after all a matter for the American people. But President Bush’s energy plan for more oil, more coal, more gas and more nuclear power stations is going to destroy the climate all over the world. That is irresponsible and it calls for plain language and decisive action from our Heads of Government in Gothenburg.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, I would like to add my voice to the condemnation and the words which have already been expressed by my colleagues, but I would like to state here that death did not suddenly strike in East Timor after the referendum. Before the referendum, more than two hundred thousand Timorese were killed, whilst the international community did nothing, taking the view that the people of East Timor were expendable. We feel that no nation is expendable, and this is why we are speaking out now. Speaking out in order to save lives and to ensure that the free will of the people of East Timor is respected. This is why we feel that the European Union – and we are appealing directly to the Council and the Commission – must take the decision to move forward with an initiative which will ensure that this process towards independence for the people of East Timor is respected. The most urgent matter though, is to save lives, because in East Timor, it is not just bullets that kill; hunger also kills. It is therefore necessary that we arrange for emergency humanitarian aid and an international peacekeeping force. We must also cease negotiations with Indonesia. We must do this so that the international community understands once and for all that Indonesia is not part of the solution in East Timor. Indonesia is part of the problem in East Timor. The Council and the Commission must extend the suspension of support in terms of economic and military co-operation because the human rights argument makes no impression on Indonesia, Mr President. The arguments that really affect them are those of economic sanctions and military concerns. (Applause)

Political group: PSE
Mr President, I too must join in the chorus of congratulations and say, on behalf of the Group, that we support the report and think that a good proposal has been made better. To be entitled to access information on environmental issues is not only a right but also an issue of power. Where many environmental issues are concerned, the public’s interest in a good environment is often pitted against strong private financial interests. The right to information is basic to the ability to shape opinion and influence policy. That is why it is also a matter of democracy that people should be able to acquire insight into environmental issues in good time. The proposal we are now discussing is largely based upon the Aarhus Convention, which we consider to be an unusually positive and far-sighted example of international cooperation in this area. The legislation we are now discussing does not cover the institutions of the EU, but these will be referred to in a later proposal. In view of the negotiations concerning public access to documents – in accordance with Article 255 – it unfortunately looks as though the result of these negotiations may be significantly worse than what was established in the Aarhus Convention where the environment is concerned, and such a result would in actual fact be quite unacceptable. When it comes to future regulations, it is also important that other institutions, too, should be fully covered by the Aarhus Convention, for example the European Investment Bank whose activities have quite a big effect upon the environment in different ways.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, I should like to give an explanation on the Honeyball report.

Political group: PPE-DE