GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Madam President, that was a very good example of a French expression of an inferiority complex vis-à-vis America! I, along with the majority of the British Conservative MEPs and the majority of members of my group, see genetic modification as an interesting and potentially very useful development for mankind and for our environment. Genetic modification of plants and seeds holds out the possibility of better food production in harsh climates and of assuring future food supplies to a fast-growing world population. It also holds out the possibility of reducing artificial agricultural inputs, notably pesticides and herbicides, whose use can cause collateral environmental damage. The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy has heard no convincing evidence that GM foods are a threat to human health or to biological diversity. If we had, we would have been very reluctant to see these proposals adopted at all. As it is, this debate has been remarkable for the chorus of , Liberal Democrats and s hymning the prospects of GM foods subject to safeguards. Some MEPs may still want to differ from the Council over the question of the thresholds but we should remember here that we are talking about very tiny amounts. The text we adopt will specify that GM presence of more than 0.9% of any ingredient will trigger the labelling requirement. That is a tiny amount. Let us be honest. The 0.9% tolerance level is, in itself, on the very margin of detectibility. There is something bizarre about Europeans putting in place such requirements when consumers in other parts of the world do not insist on them, when there is no health evidence that supports them, and when we are probably legislating for the technically impossible. I have one question for the Commission. If this legislation is adopted, and if some countries are reluctant to lift their moratorium on genetically modified foods, what action will it take?

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, Commissioner, I rise in my capacity as Vice-President of the Japan delegation and welcome the new draft regulation, which at last creates a fundamental legal basis, all be it one which will initially only run to the year 2005, for the projects on promoting cooperation and trade relations. Firstly, I would like to echo Mrs Mann’s commendation of the Commissioner for the excellent cooperation we have had, but I would especially like to join the group of delegates present here today in praising your work, Mrs Mann, because it was no easy task and I know it has been a tripartite business, involving the Commission, the Member States and Parliament. We must try to find a reasonable basis, because we will only make progress in this matter if we work together. I believe that we have, in this new draft regulation, a solid basis for a political and economic debate with the industrialised states. That is why I do not want to restrict it to trade alone. I believe it is important to achieve a closer association with the industrialised countries of North America, the Far East and Australasia, and to step up our exchange activities. This is necessary if we are to press home to people again– including MEPs – the significance of Asia. I believe there are still some marked differences in this respect. There are some excellent programmes when it comes to Japan. I believe the Executive Training Programme in Japan is exemplary and could be adopted elsewhere, indeed there is now a similar project in Korea which is in its pilot phase. The Gateway to Japan project is also outstanding as a trade promotion project. Other industrialised countries could emulate it. Conversely, I believe we delegates should consider taking our example from the relations between the legislative bodies, the American Congress for example, and Asia, because contact between the European Parliament and Asia is not firmly established enough yet. I therefore believe we should seize on this example, in a bid to build closer relations between the two houses of the Japanese parliament and the European Parliament, and just as the Americans do, working from a legal basis, so should we use the same opportunities with regard to Asia. Permit me to close with a brief remark. Even though we have adopted this kind of division of responsibility, partly for reasons of experience, on account of the different legal basis, we should be aware, nonetheless, that we have very different styles of working. Take for example my area, Asia, which keeps me extremely busy. I believe we should underpin the ASEM Process much more firmly in political and parliamentary terms. One thing we must be sure to do is hold a conference for parliamentarians before the next ASEM meeting. So regardless as to what the legal situation is, Europe and Asia must grow closer together.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, it is regrettable that again today we are having this debate in the absence of a decision from the committee currently meeting in Brussels. It is also regrettable that this debate has taken such a hysterical tone in certain parts of Europe, fuelled by some of the London-based media in particular. We would all agree that food safety and public health issues must be regarded as the highest political priorities throughout Europe, but British beef, as stated again today by Commissioner Fischler, has satisfied the public health objectives set by the European Union. I wonder whether the Commissioner, in his summing up, can state that every other Member State now meets equally high standards in beef production and slaughter. I also regret that this matter has been allowed to be portrayed as a battle between Britain and France, because it ought to be an issue between France and Europe. Here we have just ended a period of the most difficult conditions being set by the European Union on the British beef production industry, conditions which have been met, and therefore action to implement the lifting of the beef ban should be taken decisively by the Commission. My group colleague, Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, referred once or twice in his speech to “English” beef but of course the UK consists of four distinct countries and in Scotland, where I come, from the beef farmers are rightly entitled to feel badly treated because we did not have a significant BSE problem in the first place. These conditions set by Europe have been met and still we are not able to export. Our farmers rightly wonder what was the point of all of the pain they went through over the last few years in order to meet the high standards which have been set and which have been met. What would be the point of having more years of discussion and of setting up a European food standards agency if its recommendations were not to be implemented? The issue here is that if we are to have European standards then surely we must be entitled to expect that these standards are accepted by the participating Member States. Our consumers must be protected in relation to food safety, but consumers are also entitled and intelligent enough to make choices. I am quite convinced, as a resident of Angus in the heart of Scotland’s Aberdeen Angus beef production country, that consumers in France, as elsewhere, would choose Scottish beef if they were allowed to do so.

Political group: Verts-ALE
I have voted in favour of Mrs Peijs’s report and wish to emphasise the quality of the work that our rapporteur produced. I am very pleased that our House is finally making a statement on an issue as important as this. The patience of European consumers has clearly reached its limit. It has to be said that the banks have gone too far by making one promise after another that they fail to keep, content in their certainty that Brussels would not dare restrict their freedom to impose charges. The Commission has now been negotiating with them for eleven years... in vain. The banks have always refused to make the necessary investment to keep the cost of cross-border transfers down. At the same time, the current system allows them to build up a considerable pot of money for themselves. Consumers are not the only ones to bear these unjustified bank charges: they have a particularly serious effect on SMEs that export their products and the competitiveness of these companies suffers for no good reason. This situation, which has been incomprehensible to SMEs since the advent of the euro on 1 January 1999, is in danger of becoming explosive, with the euro entering into circulation in less than two months. How is it possible that the euro zone is only a single payment area for notes and coins, with all other means of payment being discouraged by punitive bank charges? How can banks justify a transfer from Lille to Bastia costing less than the same operation between Lille and Brussels? One fear still remains and that is that the banks will use their freedom to impose charges to increase domestic prices in order to compensate for the lack of earning opportunities in the euro zone. Nevertheless, as Commissioner Bolkestein said, ‘The banks know very well that the public has legitimate expectations’. We can only hope that the banks really are aware of this.

Political group: PPE-DE
Although there are aspects of this report with which I agree, I feel I must draw attention to what I would describe as the appropriation of a report – on the situation of human rights in the world, of all things – as a tool of political coercion. In it, countries listed as ‘friends’ are defended, while those listed as US or EU targets are criticised, thereby applying double standards. I cannot understand why, for instance, the report makes no mention of Israel’s invasion of Palestine, or the invasion of Iraq by the USA and its allies. I therefore support the proposals for amendments tabled by my group, which condemn the following: - human rights violations carried out by Israel in pursuit of its policy of attacking and oppressing the Palestinian people through murder, imprisonment, destruction of housing and the building of an unacceptable and illegal wall designed to enforce the occupation and colonisation of Palestinian territory; - the concept of pre-emptive war, as well as any resort to war as a means of ending international conflicts; - the invasion of Iraq, instigated by the USA and involving EU Member States, in flagrant breach of international law and the United Nations Charter.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Madam President, from the start of this legislature, the European Parliament, through its various bodies, has been working extremely hard to achieve peace in this region, making its contribution, of both a political and an economic nature, through the Union budgets. As Chairman of the Delegation for relations with Israel, it has been a privilege to share initiatives and trips with Mrs Morgantini, the Chairperson of the Delegation for relations with the Palestinian Legislative Council. Although we have certainly not always shared the same point of view, I am convinced that we have always shared the same good intentions. We have travelled together with Mrs Fontaine, the President of this House, and last Monday, as has already been mentioned, we received Mr Avram Burg, President of the Israeli Parliament and Mr Abu Ala, President of the Palestinian Legislative Council. We had lunch with this year’s winners of the Sakharov prize this very afternoon – as Mr Brok has just mentioned – a prize whose award is intended to symbolise and be understood as an expression of the European Parliament’s good intentions. We are now participating in this debate on a recommendation from the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy. I think that, right now, for the first time, we are facing a situation where no reason can be found to be optimistic and for this very reason, I think that the Council recommendation is most appropriate and useful, above all in its final version which the Groups agreed on this morning and which I am sure we will vote for, because the only thing left is intercession, even international intervention, without which we would probably be facing a situation of all-out war. Faced with today’s tragic circumstances, which are worsened by the international crisis, I firmly believe that the various parliamentary Groups should put our party political differences to one side, which would make our contribution, and that of the representatives of the European Union in this region, all the more effective. The situation we are experiencing is not akin to some kind of movie with good guys and bad guys and for this reason, and to maintain credibility, we need to call on the Israeli Government to stop its bombings, and the Palestinian Authority to prosecute without exception those extremists who are at the root of this terrorism which, under no circumstances, can be justified. At times such as these, political leaders cannot withdraw. They must stand up, for example, against the hatred of Israeli youth who call on the streets for the bombing of the Palestinian people in response to the terrorist attacks, and also stand up against this horrendous image of Palestinian children who gleefully celebrate the death of numerous innocent Israeli citizens in Jerusalem or Haifa. What exactly is being taught to these youngsters in schools? And if the current Israeli and Palestinian leaders are not capable of putting a stop to this, I am sure that sooner or later their peoples will punish them with their contempt. (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, I would not like to miss this opportunity to join the other Members, with knowledge of the subject, in complimenting Mr Alain Lamassoure on the quality of his report. I say ‘with knowledge of the subject’ because I know how passionate the debates on this subject have been over the last two years or more. I would like to expand on just two points of the report, which have already been mentioned by Mr Brok and others. The first relates to the geostrategic importance of Turkey, which has certainly increased as a result of the events which have just taken place and by the European Union’s realisation of the need to enter into a coalition to combat Islamic fundamentalist terrorism. To this end, I would like to say to our Turkish colleagues who are in the gallery, how in vain it would be, to fear that European defence might develop in competition, in parallel, and therefore redundantly, with defence based on the Atlantic Alliance. European defence is based on the Atlantic Alliance and it will continue in that direction, quite simply because Europe would not have the means to do otherwise. My second comment concerns Cyprus. It has been said that the resolution of the Cypriot problem is one of the conditions, in my view a prior condition, of any possible decision on the entry of Turkey into the Union. I do not believe that the Turkish populations in Cyprus are really in danger today and I believe it would be a very important gesture for Turkey to accept, as a first step, during the current negotiations, a reduction in the number of its armed forces in Cyprus, or even better, their evacuation.

Political group: PPE-DE
Thank you for your answer, but I am afraid that it still does not provide proper clarification. On the one hand, it is said that deployment is to take place in accordance with the UN or OSCE Charters; on the other hand, the Council’s representative says that no decision needs to be taken in the Security Council. The Swedish Foreign Minister has stated that the expression ‘in accordance with the principles of the UN Charter’ is to be interpreted as ‘following a decision in the UN’s Security Council’. She also said, in the course of last year’s conference in Cologne, that, if other countries wanted to align themselves with the UN, Sweden would have the option of using its veto. I should first of all like to know whether the Swedish Government has informed its colleagues in the Council as to whether it is planned to use the veto in the event of an EU action, that is to say an EU military action, being taken in the absence of a decision in the UN’s Security Council. Moreover, I should like to hear a still clearer statement. Can or cannot EU military personnel be deployed without a clear decision in the UN’s Security Council or in the OSCE? It ought to be easy to answer yes or no to that question.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Madam President, as there is time remaining, allow me to bring to the attention of Commissioner Fischler an issue relating to his decoupling proposals and the area required to be farmed once decoupled. If farmers have to farm 100% of the area they farmed during the reference years 2000 to 2002 in order to draw down the decoupled or area-based payment, it will put huge pressure on the price of rented land or Conacre as we say in Ireland both in Ireland and in other countries. I wonder if Mr Fischler is in a position to consider that farmers should must farm 80% or more of their land? If not, we will put a false floor under rented land and active farmers will not be able to afford it. Farmers who want to fill out the 100% of their base-year area are going to have to take that land. A distortion is being introduced into the market as a result of this requirement, and I would urge Mr Fischler to do all he can to ensure that the land is in the hands of the best farmers to farm it. That is one of the principles of decoupling.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I too would like to begin with very warm thanks to Mrs Theresa Villiers. In her report, she has splendidly succeeded in reconciling the entire spectrum of opinion in our Parliament. Let me briefly address the problem that in Basel we are creating a framework for systems that are not necessarily compatible, systems in the USA and systems in Europe, and here we must ensure that we do not ride roughshod over a particular area. Basel is looking primarily at the large banks. But we in Europe must look at the small banks. Their clients have few funds. We know that the large banks are no longer interested in them. Of course we must also make sure that Basel does not produce a second disadvantage for banks, as a result of higher own-funds requirements. As we keep repeating, it would be the small and medium-sized businesses that would bear the brunt, although we keep urging that they should be bolstered up. Internal and external ratings have just been discussed. I would also raise the question of portfolio straddling. We must ensure that the level of risk is assessed, and not just credit in the abstract, i.e. that we leave some room for manoeuvre in relation to small loans for small and medium-sized businesses and craft firms. I believe it is important that we also make it clear that what is going on in Basel is an undemocratic procedure, that the European Parliament is the only democratically legitimate organisation that is adopting a position on this in Europe. During the procedure we must not think about whether we are surrendering rights, but about the degree of detail to which we regulate matters in Europe in future, or where we should simply establish the framework and pass on certain instruments of adjustment to other institutions, such as the Commission, but also Basel. I also call on the European Central Bank and the Commission to take great care in Basel to ensure that Basel takes account of the structure of the European systems. Today we in the European Parliament must also send out the signal that we will not allow our established systems to be put at risk and that the large banks will also face problems if a legal framework is created in Europe. What we need is sufficient flexibility in this area.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, Commissioner, with regard to the strategy which has been set out here on modernising social security, I would like to point out some positive things as well as raise some questions that have come up for me. I feel positive about the movement which is very gradually taking place in the dossier. This seems to be a good thing and useful. I also feel positive about the essence of the communication, namely the strategic approach. We therefore hope that the four objectives which are mentioned in it can reasonably be achieved. We would also underline the importance of the way in which the strategy is handled. On the one hand, it would be useful to have guidelines and a process styled on Luxembourg, but we also think it is important, as is already mentioned by Mrs Van Lancker, that guidelines are drafted to accommodate less typical work scenarios, such as sole traders, etc. We nonetheless foresee two problems for which solutions will need to be found. The first problem is that concerning the downward adjustment of social security, which, we hope, will be replaced by high-level convergence. I can illustrate this with examples from a study which was carried out recently by the Dutch trade union movement into social security reforms within the European Union. It appears from this study that adjustments are rife but most of these adjustments, in fact, the majority of them, appear to be downward adjustments, the remainder being improvements. The lion’s share of these adjustments pertains to pension plans: eleven restrictions and two improvements. In the case of unemployment benefits, we came across six restrictions and five improvements. The reasons for adjustments are, for example, to improve employment, reduce social security expenditure, but are also due to policy competition and EMU criteria. Policy competition mainly occurs in the northern countries. The highest level of stability and even improvement of social security can be found in the southern countries. All in all, both sides of industry only have a limited role to play in the process as a whole. This is nothing to write home about and means that the convergence strategy must focus on the best approaches. To use a figure of speech, cappuccino is not always good for us.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, I would like to warmly welcome the proposal from the Commission and the report Mrs Napoletano has produced. There is breathtaking ambition involved here. It would be quite easy for the European Union to say it has enough on its hands dealing with enlargement and bedding down the enlargement process. However, it would be extremely short-sighted to do that, and the current idea of pushing forward with a policy in the context of developing near neighbours is extremely important. I was struck this morning by something the Irish President said when talking about near neighbours - people who live next to each other but do not know each other, at either a local or an international level. That ignorance of each other breeds fear and distrust and eventually will breed conflict. Therefore, this near neighbourhood policy is extremely important, not only for our security but also for the security of those countries who are our neighbours. Let us not go down the road of saying we cannot have freedom of movement from North Africa. We have freedom of movement from North Africa, we simply do not recognise it.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, most of you will be aware that I have taken a different line from our President. However, I respect this decision, and if you have succeeded in bringing forth from this result an attitude of goodwill that will later actually be reflected in amendments to the Treaties or in some other acknowledgement of our rights, that would be a success that would not have been possible without the joint action of the Legal Affairs Committee and our President.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, I do not fully understand why we are going to vote without any explanations, since Mr Brok and Mr Wynn took part in a three-way dialogue this morning on behalf of the committees. I think that Parliament should be given further information as to the results of this dialogue before taking a decision. (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE