GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Madam President, my dear Dagmar, I have to tell Mr Barnier that, when I came into the plenary, I was still in a good mood. No doubt it is my fault that I have been unaware of your existence in recent years. At any rate, you have had nothing to say for the whole of the debate on cosmetics, and, if you are going to go away today and say that everything went wrong, I cannot recall you having made any serious or creditable contribution to this debate. My dear Dagmar, a veritable fanfare of compliments has been sounded in your honour today. It is one in which I am happy to join. Having done well, you have earned it, and it was our great good fortune to be allowed to spend whole nights in your company – and how many can boast of that? Every directive has, of course, its pros and cons. We have not yet slammed the door shut, but I believe that we have made a great advance by saying that the cut-off point will be at the end of a period of time – in 2009 as far as I am concerned. I know perfectly well from my study of the market economy, Mr Barnier, that industry needs facts and data in order to be able to plan ahead – and there is nothing you can teach us on that score. Today, industry will go away and take on young people – researchers, doctors, engineers – whose job will be to look for alternatives. That is precisely what management needs, and that is why this is the right way to go. Mr Liikanen, you know that, much as I respect you, your office sometimes puts forward wearisome proposals. Now, though, you are on the right track, and I would like to give you strong encouragement to stand firm when it comes to the question of whether or not all this is acceptable to the WTO. And stand firm you certainly will, for you know that the whole serried ranks of this House are behind you. That means, I believe, that another solid success will be ours. Ladies and gentlemen, I have no need of three minutes. Europe and her people's representatives have grasped that animals are to be valued in a different way. I cannot but go along with that, and we will do everything to ensure a respectable and credible reduction in the number of experiments on animals. That there has to be, yet again, one small category in which such tests must still be carried out, is something that we accept, and that I believe to be necessary, but the great number of them must be brought down, never to increase again. The victory is yours, Mrs Roth-Behrendt – congratulations! (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, Commissioner, clearly, the signature of any agreement constitutes an important milestone in the Barcelona process. This is particularly so if the agreement is being signed with Egypt, which is such an important country. We know and believe it can play a leading role in North-South and South-South dialogue, and be in the forefront of economic and commercial development. As General Morillon stated, we also believe that Egypt is ready to take the lead in all issues relating to cultural dialogue and civil society, not just in economic and financial matters, and that it is in a position to do so. Furthermore, Egypt’s key role as a mediator in the Arab-Israeli conflict is patently obvious. For all these reasons, substantiated cases of infringement of fundamental human rights and freedoms, such as those referred to today, give cause for particular concern. Article 2 cannot therefore be simply a political clause. It has to have tangible value. It is important for those countries to progress along the road to democracy. We believe the Egyptian government should take this fully into account. I should like to make one point clear to Mr Sakellariou. Nobody has raised the possibility of voting against this report. The previous vote was not for or against this report. As I see it, sounding a note of caution simply amounts to giving Egypt the importance due to it as a country. It does not mean penalising it.

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, the treatment of waste and the whole policy on waste is becoming an ever more important part of EU environmental policy. To be able to act sensibly and correctly we have to bear in mind something that has already been spoken of here, which is to say the waste hierarchy: the prevention of waste, recycling, the exploitation of its energy-producing potential through incineration, and its final treatment. The Commission’s proposal is not a total response to this idea, and is rather based on the notion that everything must and can be burnt. The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy added the necessary amendments to promote the waste hierarchy to its common position in its second reading, and I hope that these points of view will also be adopted in tomorrow’s vote. I also hope there is support for the proposal that was very much endorsed by the Committee to facilitate the incineration of waste produced by the paper and cellulose industry at the production site. This waste is an important energy source not only for the industrial plants themselves but also for the surrounding community. As the waste hierarchy is implemented in very many different ways in different Member States and in most countries they burn both hazardous and non-hazardous waste in the same incinerator, very strict rules are required. However, in those countries where the recycling of waste is reasonably well established, such as Finland, and where they know what is being incinerated where, tighter controls will not improve the state of the environment; on the contrary, it might make it worse, as the incineration of waste will be prevented in small incineration plants and transportation will increase. But, as regards impurities in the air, it would be necessary that exceptions to the strict standards would only apply when the party incinerating the waste can truly demonstrate that no more emissions are being released into the air than what the licensing conditions allow.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, Commissioner, although I am grateful to you for your extensive and clear response, I am nevertheless left with a problem. At the end of your intervention, you draw a clear distinction between analogue and digital copying, whereby the former would not be harmful to the information society, while the latter would. As far as I know – and I have been involved in information society legislation for years – we in Europe specifically do not draw a distinction between digital and analogue, in the sense that legislation must be technology-neutral. So I am a little taken aback by your statement. Moreover, I am surprised that the directive does not tend more towards harmonisation, particularly because your offices initially indicated that it would do so. Where fair compensation is concerned, it is important to establish whether the rightholder is actually being adversely affected, whether any technological protection measures are available and whether any other payment is made to the rightholder. This is why I think that it is regrettable after all that Member States are not required to adapt their legislation in the sense that only fair compensation is granted.

Political group: ELDR
I abstained on the joint resolution on the Bonn conference on climate change. It presents a much too enthusiastic assessment of the agreement negotiated. It is difficult to believe that this agreement ‘gives new impetus’ to Kyoto, constitutes an ‘essential instrument’ for a ‘world strategy against global warming ‘ and represents ‘an extremely positive message for all citizens who are concerned about globalisation’. It should in fact sound the alarm bell: nine years after Rio, no real measures have been put in place and the ambitions displayed by the Member States have been strangely diluted. The Bonn agreement includes positive points, such as the refusal to present nuclear energy as ‘clean energy’. But it marks a new climb down in the face of supporters of the ‘let the market decide’ approach, which can only concern and not reassure ‘citizens who are concerned about globalisation’. The joint resolution is still quite ambiguous on this essential issue. Paragraph 9 ‘regrets’ the space given in Bonn to ‘coal wells’ and ‘flexible systems ‘. But paragraph 6 proposes that the 2003 conference on the climate should have these ‘systems’ as a theme (the international system of exchange of emission rights) rather than the essential public policies that are required to fight against climate chaos. The simple fact that an agreement was reached in Bonn with Japan, Australia, Canada and Russia should not hide how far the content of that agreement is from responding to the urgency of the challenges.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Ownership of or control over newspapers, television and websites is becoming increasingly important in managing information and propaganda. If all media become concentrated in the same hands then we will be going back to the days in the past when the media had less reach and often a monopoly was created involving the authorities, a powerful party, the Church or a regional publisher. People only heard one opinion as to what was good or bad, and how society should develop. Government and big business are still trying to achieve that. In Spain recently the previous government tried to shift the blame for three major bomb attacks onto a separatist movement rather than an international movement because that would be better for them in the elections. In Italy, the Prime Minister controls the commercial company MEDIASET as its owner and the State-run company RAI thanks to his role in government. The Christian Democrat group shies away from criticising this situation and have attempted to keep this topic off the agenda by ignoring the problems, holding endless procedural debates and submitting enormous numbers of amendments. They are abusing democracy in order to abolish democracy. I support the rapporteur in her attempts to deal with cable monopolies as well and to push for statutory measures aimed at protecting freedom and diversity of opinion in the media.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Like other Members who spoke at the beginning of this debate, I have abstained in the vote because I am a rightholder in the field of television documentary archive and books. None of these interests are directly involved in any financial gain for me should the amendments be passed, and in any event – in common with the rapporteur, Mr Boselli – I am opposed to many of them. Nevertheless, it is the wisest course to abstain and to congratulate Mr Boselli on his successful negotiation of a report which comes so close to the common position and the balance which it achieved.

Political group: PSE
Madam President, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the Council – not for the first time, I might add – has contravened the Rules of Procedure. The point being that we MEPs have the opportunity, once a month, to submit a written question, for priority consideration which, according to the Rules of Procedure, must be responded to within three weeks. Now what we are finding is that increasingly often, the Council is failing to keep to this time scale. Here is the latest example: I submitted a question in October, to which I have not received an answer to this day, namely when is the Council going to get round to implementing the salary increase promised to the Europol staff? This is not an isolated case, rather such instances are mounting up. I would urge you to press the Council to observe the Rules of Procedure. (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE
I have requested the floor, Mr President, just to say that it is not true that other parliaments do not have long, complex votes. We are drafting a law here, and when we draft laws the entire House needs to give its opinion. I therefore feel that it would also be appropriate to stop taking a populist approach in these matters. Furthermore, I support Mr Corbett’s reform, but not at the cost of reducing the political initiative of the small groups. (Applause) *** Report (A5-0379/2001) by Zappalà, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive coordinating the procurement procedures of entities operating in the water, energy and transport sectors (COM(2000) 276 – C5-0368/2000 – 2000/0117(COD)) (Parliament adopted the legislative resolution) *** Report (A5-0430/2001) by Grosch, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the training of professional drivers for the carriage of goods or passengers by road (COM(2001) 56 – C5-0037/2001 – 2001/0033(COD)) (Parliament adopted the legislative resolution) *** Recommendation (A5-0412/2001) by Rod, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the proposal for a Council decision concerning the conclusion of the Partnership Agreement between the African, Caribbean and Pacific States on the one part, and the European Community and its Member States, on the other (2117/2000 – COM(2000) 324 – C5-0417/2000 – 2000/0124(AVC)) (Parliament adopted the legislative resolution) *** Report (A5-0419/2001) by García-Orcoyen Tormo, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the Commission Green Paper on integrated product policy (COM(2001) 68 – C5-0259/2001 – 2001/2117(COS)) (Parliament adopted the resolution) *** Report (A5-0451/2001) by Alyssandrakis, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the Commission communication to the Council and the European Parliament on Europe and Space: Turning to a new chapter (COM(2000) 597 – C5-0146/2001 – 2001/2072(COS)) Before the vote:

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should first like to welcome the overall objective sought by the Commission's proposal, namely of making our roads even safer. I am therefore grateful to all of the Members who have worked on it in the committees to bring us closer to this objective. Allow me, as a member of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and as someone from a rural constituency, nevertheless to make a number of critical comments. At first sight, the title ‘harmonisation of certain social legislation relating to road transport’ does not appear to have any relevance for agriculture policy. However, the Commission proposal contains a number of points which are also important for agriculture. Alongside vehicles that the layperson would imagine to be passenger, goods or towing vehicles in the conventional sense, namely cars or lorries, the Commission proposal also affects vehicles that are used in farming. Hitherto these were excluded by virtue of the old Article 13. If courier and express delivery services are frequently involved in serious accidents then it may well be justified to include them in the scope of this regulation. But for milk collection vehicles and tractors to be made subject to provisions of this kind as well does seem to me to be very arbitrary. Imagine what this means in real life: tractors – and some are really very small – with tachographs, or the driver of a milk lorry, who goes from farm to farm and can no longer have his little chat (rest period) with farmer X because he has to respect a very particular sequence of driving times and rest periods, as if he were travelling from Rotterdam to Munich. Let me give you another example: Article 13 provides for an exemption for the transport of live animals within a 50-kilometre radius. For vehicles transporting animal carcasses and offal there is no such exemption. What is the reasoning behind this? I view the restrictions that are to be introduced on breakdown vehicles in a similarly critical light. The current regulation, which provided for exemptions in the areas that I have mentioned, certainly did not penalise the weaker members of society, but it was practicable. Thankfully my group has tabled amendments that mitigate some of these shortcomings in the Commission proposal. Nevertheless, I am certainly of the opinion that there will still be much more to correct before the second reading, precisely in the agricultural sector, if we want legislation that the public will understand and also accept. Anything else just causes bad feeling towards Europe.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, I cannot go along with the Liberals on this. I would inform you, (Interruptions) my dear Mr Schulz, that is simply because the Liberals indicated yesterday that they intended to reject it, and so I assumed that the honourable Member was among their number, but that is obviously an oversight. But that which is not, may yet be! Turning to the matter in hand, I would like to inform you that this second Ayuso González report refers to the Council's compromise proposal, which does not provide for a common organisation of the market, but only for a market regulation. This will result in Article 10 being dropped, as Article 10 states that national subsidies are prohibited in an organised market. That has lapsed, and so I ask you to agree to this urgent procedure.

Political group: PPE-DE
According to Mrs Thorning-Schmidt, 24% of workers in Europe are exposed to mechanical vibrations. These are mainly those working in the mining, building, manufacturing, forestry and transport industries. Hand-arm vibrations cause serious and virtually systematic problems, such as the ‘white finger’ phenomenon in woodcutters and forestry workers; carpal tunnel syndrome, poor circulation and loss of feeling. Whole body vibrations cause lumbar pain, slipped discs, as well as premature degeneration of the spinal column. However, despite the fact that these problems are known to be harmful to workers’ health, it has taken almost ten years for a European directive to be drafted! The reason why this has taken so long is because the management in these sectors and equipment manufacturers are taking a stand, and they do not want restrictive standards, which would mean the equipment used would have to be replaced immediately in the light of technological developments. Furthermore, businesses do not always use approved equipment. And where they do, they do not necessarily inspect it on a regular basis, so the vibrations increase. Above all, however, the conditions under which people are obliged to work are considerably aggravating factors. The equipment concerned is often used by workers who are paid for their output, in terrible conditions of intensive work. We must oblige businesses to pay for regular breaks throughout the day. It is scandalous that workers continue to risk their health in order to earn a living. Report Korhola (A5-0321/2001):

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, in no way has the human rights situation in Turkey improved over the past year. I am in favour of Turkey's admittance to the EU, but the Copenhagen criteria must be met. Whilst I welcome the amendments to the constitution, they fall far short of my expectations. Turkey must take still further action, or else it will not be able to join the EU. The death penalty has not been abolished, but only restricted. Turkish politicians show little zeal when it comes to putting the changes to the constitution into practice. Whilst Arabic, English, German and Chinese may be taught at Turkish institutions of higher education, Kurdish, the mother tongue of 12 million people, remains barred from the education system. Over 10 000 students who availed themselves of their constitutionally guaranteed right and petitioned for Kurdish to be allowed, now face criminal proceedings. They are charged with separatism. Any peaceful and political solution to the Kurdish issue will involve the lifting of the ban on the language and the incorporation of Kurdish as a subject in the curriculum. The Copenhagen criteria include the right to native-language teaching and media, and must be a non-negotiable condition for accession. Members of HAP have also been arrested and accused of initiating the Kurdish campaign. The opening of proceedings to ban HADEP have seen increased repression of its members. In the past year, 2001, 3 245 HADEP members were arrested, over fifty-five offices were searched and shut down. Over 3 000 HADEP members were arrested on World Peace Day, and one person was even killed. Commissioner Verheugen, I challenge you to travel to South-East Turkey and talk to the thirty-seven mayors who belong to HAP, and who receive no financial aid. The villages that were destroyed have still not yet been rebuilt. How are the thousand refugees meant to survive? Why is it that the South-East gets no money from MEDA Programme funds, even though the rules require it? Banning HADEP will be a backward step for democracy, and will set Turkey off on a march in the wrong direction on the road that leads to Europe. Along with my group, I vehemently demand that the proceedings against HADEP be abandoned at once. The Conference of Presidents has resolved to send a delegation to Turkey. Until such time as Turkey publicly speaks out against banning HADEP, any delegation must show its solidarity with HADEP and support it. We must show here and now that this House does not accept undemocratic actions! (Applause)

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, after the approval of Mr Lannoye’s report, which I have voted for with pleasure, my breakfast will never by the same. At last we – I – finally have a European breakfast, a real European breakfast, because the sugar will be more European, there will be European honey, there will be European fruit juice, there will be European milk and, finally, the jam will taste European. We could never have a sweeter Europe without this directive, presented by Mr Lannoye and voted for by me? Thank you, Mr Lannoye, and thank you Europe! - Conference on climate change (RC B5-0539/2001) Meijer , – (NL) The follow-up conference on climate change in Bonn produced two extremes. On the one hand, those who say that the result obtained there was the best achievable under the present circumstances, are correct. On the other hand, the result is worse than the worst-case scenario that was feared at the previous conference in The Hague in November 2000. That conference was dominated by the fear that, for the sake of a worldwide agreement, concessions would be made to the US. Among the EU Member States, the question was about the choice between two possibilities. One was to stand firm in order to maintain the reductions agreed in Kyoto. The other was to search for what might be just acceptable to the Americans, and to accept the required moderation as inevitable. As an observer at this conference, I took the side of the steadfast German and French Green Environment Ministers in the debate at the plenary session on 29 November. Since the refusal of the new American President to sign any agreement, the resistance against what was then feasible seems to have fallen by the wayside. In order to keep Japan and Australia on board, more has now been paid than was demanded by America last year. Bush is the winner. In ten years’ time, this inadequate agreement will be deemed a disgrace.

Political group: PPE-DE