GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Mr President, we heard this morning from Parliament's legal services that if we retained the phase 'including private international law provisions' in paragraph 15 we could not mention the two articles of the Treaty which are the purpose of this amendment. I therefore move the deletion of those words, with the support of Mrs Thyssen and Mr Bushill-Matthews, who jointly moved amendments in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy originally.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, the amendments by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy underline generally the high levels of environmental protection, and for that reason many of these amendments are acceptable. There are differing infrastructures for the treatment and incineration of waste in different countries, however, and, as a result, the same provisions are not in fact the same for everyone. In Finland and some other countries the sorting of waste in close proximity to where it originates is very advanced. Thus, we do not incinerate mixed waste, as they do in certain countries. The incineration of mixed waste is bad environmental policy. Sorted waste can be incinerated effectively together with other fuels in a so-called coincineration process. The amendments by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy unjustifiably lump together the incineration of mixed waste with parallel incineration. That might have an adverse effect, as a result of its indirect economic impact, on levels of environmental protection in the countries that sort waste. For that reason, Amendments Nos 14, 17, 18 and 27 should not be adopted. Finally, I would like say that the cement industry lobby should not be put in a competitive position that is better than that enjoyed by the hazardous waste disposal plants.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, enlargement of the Union is essentially a political necessity. Personally, I am in favour of uniting Europe in a geographical sense. I am also in favour of strengthening political and economic ties within Europe. Clearly therefore, I did not support those opposed to enlargement of any kind. I was unable to vote in favour, however, because the enlargement decided on at Copenhagen will not be implemented in an open and systematic manner. We shall instead descend into confusion. In time, European integration is likely to grind to a halt as a result of enlargement. The economic and social situation of almost all the new Member States is precarious, to say the least. Calculated in terms of purchasing power, their standard of living is about 40% of the Community average. Nonetheless, accession aid amounted to only 0.03% of Community GDP, according to the report by Mr Wim Kok. In other words, it is a pittance. The SAPARD appropriations intended to facilitate structural adjustment of agriculture in the candidate countries disappeared into a maze of Community red tape. Only 6.48% of the EUR 1.04 billion initially allocated for 2000 and 2001 was implemented.

Political group: PSE
Madam President, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, this framework agreement between the European Parliament and the European Commission represents a great step forward in relations between our two institutions. My Group called for this framework agreement, and it is very much committed to it. Relations between the Commission and the European Parliament will be put on a very firm and clear footing, and it is our common goal to support the building of Europe. The Commission is the executive, we together with the Council are the legislative, and this framework agreement will create means for the European Parliament to exercise its parliamentary control function more effectively. It goes without saying that future regulations which become Community law in the European Union will not be affected by this framework agreement. As legislators we are of course free to set these in train. This framework agreement is based on the principles of parliamentarism, democracy and transparency. The Commission has once again incorporated in this agreement, in a legally binding way, the concessions that it made to the European Parliament last September before it was elected – the ‘five points’. These items relate to the annexes on the legislative procedure, and the involvement of and provision of information to Parliament regarding agreements and on enlargement issues. They also concern the passing on of confidential information. Of course not everyone’s requirements have been met, including some of our own, but it is not always possible to achieve everything. However, taken as a whole, this agreement does represent progress, and I would sincerely like to thank everyone involved in it – you, Madam President, Vice-President Loyola de Palacio, the President of the Commission, Mr Prodi, and also the political group leaders, who showed great commitment in their work on it. The Group of the and the will be unanimously voting for this agreement.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, Mr Katiforis’ passion and conviction have prevented him from carrying out the usual task of a rapporteur in plenary which is to defend his report. Instead he has defended his own position which was not the one approved in committee. We clearly have different views, one of which is that we believe the development of the European economy can be regarded with confidence. Yesterday, when speaking to the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, Commissioner Solbes specifically indicated that the prospects for this year and next for the European economy are excellent. Moreover, several countries were mentioned whose problem is what to do with the public surplus. They are having to choose, for example, between reducing taxes or reducing the public deficit, but clearly avoiding any price rises, or – so there is no misunderstanding – creating a special reserve for future situations in which welfare may be needed, given the EU’s population growth. We are inclined to believe that a solid basis exists for this economic growth in the Union, now and in the coming years. It must be taken into account that we have an open, globalised and very competitive economy. In order to reach and even overtake the leading position of the United States of America, we must avoid interventionism, as proposed initially by Mr Katiforis, and also excessive intervention by the public authorities in the construction of certain infrastructures. Furthermore, the Member States refused to contribute more funds when we discussed Agenda 2000 which means that there will be little available over the next few years at Union level. However, we must stress the need to continue developing the construction of the European internal market which still has some serious flaws. There are still sectors such as air transport, energy and telecommunications in which, if we compare our unit cost with that of the USA or other countries which are equally competitive at international level, the cost supported by our companies is very high. This report contains information which shows that in order to create a new company the bureaucratic cost in the USA is EUR 500 and in the European Union, on average, it is EUR 1 600. We therefore still have too much bureaucracy and intervention. It is only by complying with the essential agreements established with the programmes following on from the stability pact and by developing a market with less obstacles at all levels that we will reach the levels of competitiveness required by the European Union.

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, 140 years ago, slavery was abolished in the USA and Russia. Now, it has been introduced into Europe. According to the UN body the IOM, half a million women are lured or forced into Europe every year for a life as sex slaves. This substantially increased trade is more profitable than drug smuggling and is increasingly often controlled by an organised mafia. At the same time, every year over a million children are forced into child prostitution and the growing child pornography industry. These children are increasingly being exploited by tourists and businessmen who, remarkably often, come from Europe. Despite this grim reality, the penalties for the sexual exploitation of children, for child pornography and for trafficking in women are exceedingly low compared with the penalties for drugs smuggling. It may perhaps be a matter of two years’ imprisonment compared with 10-15 years for serious drugs crimes. Few perpetrators are brought before the courts and even fewer are sentenced. We are today debating an attempt to turn rhetoric and fine words, to which we have in fact been devoting ourselves for many years, into concrete measures. Our four rapporteurs have carried out excellent work and, on a number of points, go further than the Commission, which moreover I would also compliment. It is essential to achieve a harmonisation of the legislation and to increase the penalties. Where the sexual exploitation of children is concerned, our most important demand is that the legislation must encompass all children under 16 years of age, which is entirely in line with the usual definition of children in international conventions. Setting the limit at 10 years of age may even worsen the situation for children who are just 10 years old, because demand for these children will then increase dramatically. The lack of legislation applies not just to measures to combat the criminals, but also to the absence of the laws protecting the victims. There are already many of us who support the call to stop the sexual exploitation of women and children, but more are needed. We need more men and more governments to support it, and above all we need more practical action.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner Solbes Mira recently said, quite rightly, that economic growth is Europe's great weakness. I would like to add that budget deficits in Europe are another great weakness. Worse still, it is precisely the biggest countries that have allowed these large deficits to build up. However, in view of this it is also important to emphasise that this does not apply to all the EU Member States. There are in all seven countries in the European Union that either have a balanced budget, or, as in the case of Sweden, Denmark and Finland, have a budget surplus. So it is not acceptable for people constantly to talk about the 15 Member States of the EU as if the same problems applied to all of them. No, they are very different, and I believe that is something we need to spell out very clearly. There is also another factor here: there are countries that are not complying with the 3% criterion in the Stability Pact, especially of course France, Portugal and Germany. When I look at the Stability Pact I can only say that there is perhaps still a little glimmer of hope that it will survive. When you consider the debate going on in Germany, for example, and the fact that fiscal reform is not supposed to be counter-financed by cutting subsidies, then it is evident that Germany will be in breach of the pact for years to come. We do not therefore consider it acceptable for Europe's major economies to fail to implement the necessary structural reforms and thus fail to sort out their budgets. Both the European Central Bank and the Commissioner responsible have repeatedly observed that it is precisely these countries that need to carry out structural reform in health services, for example, or in other areas across the whole range of social provision, because there are latent budgetary risks in these areas. This needs to be tackled once and for all. I think it is fair to say that Mr Duisenberg put his stamp on the European Central Bank in the early years, when it was on the way to independence. This became apparent during the great many dialogues that we had in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, and for that, Mr Duisenberg, I would like to thank you personally. It is vital that we should continue to prevent the bank from being politicised, so that the dialogue with Parliament should be about providing information and not justifications. That needs to be emphasised too. I believe that Mr Duisenberg himself has done a great deal to safeguard that independence. I would like to make one last point. Europe needs to be extremely flexible – we need flexible arrangements. But we do not want flexibility when it comes to Europe's Stability Pact. That is something I feel very strongly about.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, first of all warm thanks to the rapporteur Michael Cashman and to all those who have contributed to this report. Until now, transparency has been little more than a much-misused slogan when applied to the activities of the EU institutions. The Cashman report with its demands is now a first, valuable step forward, although, in my view, no more than that. We Members should be more courageous. We will be setting up an inter-party and interparliamentary European transparency initiative, known in short as ETI. It will be made up of MEPs, members of national parliaments, but also media representatives, because it is important to defend ourselves jointly against the intolerable habit of secrecy in the EU institutions. It is not just a matter of the principle of unrestricted access to all documents but also, of course, of finally managing to open the doors of Council meetings, so that in future the Council can no longer take lonely decisions in camera à la Metternich and then go in for cheap ‘Brussels bashing’. The media representatives, in particular, are warmly invited to support our parliamentarians and to work together with us so that we can find out all the things the citizen wants to know and needs to know. Tomorrow there will be a meeting in London. We will ask the British Foreign Trade Minister and the Minister for Science to show their understanding for our concern. The weekend after that, the European Council of Artists will be meeting in Madrid and there, too, ETI will feature large on the agenda. The model for us all is the American Freedom of Information Act and the living practice of transparency in Sweden. It is not just chance that we have heard almost only Scandinavians speak here, with very few speakers from Germany or Italy and, so far at least, I believe, none from France. It is fortunate that the Swedes will be taking over the presidency of the Council next year; perhaps they will be able to send out a much clearer signal. In any case, we need a new age of enlightenment and this is a great opportunity for us MEPs to show our true colours. (Applause)

Political group: PSE
I voted against the report on Turkey’s progress towards accession, since, quite apart from the report’s position stating that Turkey does not fulfil the required criteria to accede, I am opposed in principle to Turkey joining the EU. Turkey does not belong to the continent, geographically speaking, and Europe must establish coherent borders. It is for this reason that I welcomed the possibility of proposing a privileged partnership, as envisaged in the future European Constitution. While Parliament does not support this approach, I feel that Turkey’s accession would run counter to the construction of a strong and coherent political Europe. - Scarbonchi report (A5-0143/2004)

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, when the European Union talks about human rights, the people have every reason to worry. Memories of the criminal invasions of Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq are still fresh. The problem, of course, is that the peoples suffering the ‘benevolence’ of the European Union and its imperialist friends insist on resisting their liberators. The same applies to the people of Cuba, who are not convinced of the advantages of the free market. The European Union, which has appointed itself as the global defender of human rights, uses them selectively as a lever for exercising pressure in order to impose its policy. It has in its sights regions and states which are of geostrategic and economic importance and states such as Cuba, Vietnam, China, Belarus etc. with inconvenient social and political systems. Even religious freedom is being used for this purpose, while the Turco resolution reaches the point of proposing an ‘offshore’ law with punishments and sanctions in accordance with the US standard. On the other hand, the European Union and the report turn a blind eye to the violations of human rights in the USA, with the anti-terrorism legislation allowing secret arrests and special courts martial. They do the same for Israel, Turkey and the candidate countries which prosecute and ban communist parties. There is an urgent need, ladies and gentlemen, for the people to put an end to this hypocrisy.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I do not intend to re-open with Mr Duisenberg the debate which we held in committee a while back. The Group of the totally disagrees with the policy of raising interest rates, which has been applied since the end of 1999. We are as displeased by the second period of management by the Bank, starting in the last quarter of 1999, as we were satisfied with the first, not because the Bank overestimates the importance of variations in exchange rates against the dollar – it does in our view, but that is by the by – but because the debate on exchange rates obviously masks the Central Bank's aversion to growth and its serious underestimation of the potential rate of growth of the European Union. Yes, there are difficulties with a rate of growth of 3% but these difficulties imply that there should be more, not less investment and, hence, lower not higher interest rates. What I would like to stress today is the scandal that is the second part of paragraph 11 of the Radwan report. To dare to say that the French 35-hour law is responsible for the fall in the euro because it has weakened European competitiveness overall is an intellectual lie, pure and simple. It was after this law was announced that the Toyota factory – and many others – decided to open in France. If the MEPs consider that the Toyota factory does not know what it is doing, that is their right; that these MEPs claim to suggest such absurd rules to national governments and European social policy, frankly, seems to us... (The President cut the speaker off)

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, I would like to take up what Mary Read had to say in her intervention, when she discussed the impact on jobs and employment. It is simply not the case that the workers in our regions and constituencies are forever waiting with bated breath for us to liberalise previously protected sectors. The reverse is often true. We are going to have to answer a whole host of employees’ questions about local public transport operatives over the next few weeks and months. We, the representatives of the people, must provide these answers, and not the Commission, which will talk to the union leaders if need be. One thing is for sure, unrestricted liberalisation and the opening up of markets, are no panacea. However, market opening in the telecommunications sector itself, demonstrates that market opening can bring benefits for consumers in the form of falling prices and access to new services. It has brought about rapid advances in technology, which, at the end of the day, will lead to an increase in jobs, even high-quality jobs in the major sectors. The globalisation of our national economies has had a major stimulating effect on the liberalisation of telecommunications markets in Europe, and, conversely, has furthered development at international level. It goes without saying that we need a certain number of commercial giants to be able to hold our own as a global player. But this must not of course lead to new monopolies in markets and market sectors. We need to adopt a rigorous competition policy with regard to commercial organisations, in order to ensure that no single company gains a dominant hold in the new market block formed by the telecommunications and multimedia sectors. That is why we should support the Commission’s decision in matters such as WorldCom and Sprint. We also hope that it will adopt a similarly rigorous approach where Time Warner and AOL are concerned. Above all, though, the Commission must use its efforts to modernise competition law, particularly in respect of the regulation on merger control, as an opportunity to adopt an extremely rigorous approach to its reform undertakings too. We hope this will not prove to be to the detriment of competition policy.

Political group: PSE
I support this measure, because it constitutes a step forwards in establishing a system of judicial and police cooperation, which is necessary if the area of freedom, security and justice is to come into being. This framework decision is aimed at replacing simple cooperation in criminal matters, by implementing the principle of mutual recognition. It must consequently allow for more rapid and effective cooperation and, at the same time, render the European arrest warrant more effective. It will enable a European Evidence Warrant to be issued to obtain objects, documents and data for use in proceedings in criminal matters, provided that these items are already available in the executing Member State. Measures such as the European arrest warrant and the European Evidence Warrant will only be effective, however, when they are implemented by all Member States. We can, therefore, only regret the fact that the framework decision on the European arrest warrant has not been implemented throughout the EU by 1 January 2004. Only eight Member States have implemented it. I thus welcome the fact that the recent European Council set a deadline for June for implementing measures to combat terrorism that have already been adopted, including the European arrest warrant. I hope that this time, finally, the measures set out following 11 September 2001 are transposed and implemented. Everything depends on the political will and the political will does appear to exist!

Political group: PPE-DE