GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Mr President, the legislative package being discussed to create a Single European Sky is a very challenging one. I would like at this stage to thank the rapporteurs for their excellent cooperation and in taking this matter forward. The problem with European airspace is congestion. There is an enormous volume of air traffic in Central Europe. Ensuring that it flows well demands cooperation between the Member States, and this has already been achieved. Nevertheless, in sparsely populated Member States, such as Finland, there are not very many problems of this sort. The country’s domestic air traffic, in particular, can be managed very flexibly alone. The objectives in the report are ambitious. It has a number of far-reaching proposals. One of them concerns the division of airspace. Dividing up the airspace into sectors could be brought about if necessary through qualified majority decisions. One might wonder whether this is necessary to achieve the objectives or whether cooperation between the Member States would suffice. It may well be that closer integration in the heart of the EU is essential, but there is probably no need for it in the peripheral regions, given their special circumstances. A problem, too, is charges. If air traffic control services were charged based on average values it might well mean that charges would clearly rise in some areas. A more delicate problem is the integration of military aviation and air defence with the European system. Traditionally, military matters and questions of defence do not fall within the scope of the codecision procedure, involving the Council and Parliament, in the EU, and there is no justification for that now either. Consequently, in this regard too we should tread carefully and respect agreed principles. Even taking these difficulties into consideration, however, the reports are extremely valuable and the objectives they have set their sights on are excellent.

Political group: ELDR
Madam President, I must admit to being rather moved, for not even in this House is this amount of praise and appreciation to be reckoned with. I admit to enjoying it, for politicians do not often come in for praise, at any rate not with such frequency and regularity. It has made me feel good, but I have already tried to pass this praise back. Thank you for the debate, which I hope will turn out to be the last on this topic in this House; you have heard, Mr Liikanen, that it will be your future task to monitor how progress is made. It will be your task to see to it, along with your fellow Commissioner Mr Busquin, that the European Community's Joint Research Centre has sufficient resources to evaluate the alternatives that will then come into existence. Your mission is to drive industry onward, support it and, in tandem with it, to ensure that alternatives are developed quickly and equally quickly accepted. This is something we must do together. Commissioner, you have heard today a message that will surely get through to the cosmetics industry and the Member States too: we will be very vigilant as regards how the timetable is kept to, and that this time there really will be the cut-off point of which Mr Florenz and others spoke earlier. I would rather not hear anything further said on this subject in this House. My wish is that there should now be a timetable, one that might even now be complied with even more promptly, and that that should draw a line under the subject. Please let me conclude by again saying ‘thank you’ – that is why I wanted to say a final word. Not to you, though, ladies and gentlemen, for I have thanked you already. I would like to thank those without whom I could not have carried on this work – first and foremost my assistant Mrs Annika Nowak, who is probably sitting listening to this in my office, and who knows this dossier better than I do, but also especially the Secretariat of the Conciliation Committee. Parliament has good staff; some of them are more than just good, and the Conciliation Committee Secretariat, sitting over there today, has certainly had the most work to do, far more than I have had myself. Let me now – yes, this really is the end! – say ‘thank you’ to Mrs Kerry Postlewhite, one of my group's staff, who, throughout the last few years has advised me and been of use to me in my capacity as group leader and rapporteur, and without whom I would not have been able to keep my feet on the ground. Today is probably the last time she will sit here in the plenary, as she is soon to take up other duties, and, whilst I am saddened by this, I know she will be doing something new that she will like and that will be a joy to her. I have no idea how the members of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy and I are supposed to work without her. Anyway, we will give it a try. She is here working on one of her briefs for the last time, and so my final and especial thanks must go to Mrs Kerry Postlewhite. Thank you for the debate, and I hope that the vote, which is about to take place, will go well.

Political group: PSE
While I voted in favour of the Brok report on enlargement of the EU on this day that Parliament approved the accession of the ten candidate countries, sending a signal to many countries that had been artificially excluded through years of Communist oppression, I do not accept many of its elements. For example, I do not believe that the EU as such is an appropriate interlocutor with NATO on military matters (paragraph 6) (I reject the idea of a 'common diplomatic service' (paragraph 10); I do not agree with the thrust of paragraphs 11 and 20 which suggest rigid adherence to possibly objectionable EU policy lines; I do not accept that the focus of asylum policy should be on humanitarian aspects instead of reducing the numbers of those being admitted (paragraph 22) or the idea that accession represents a 'starting point for further integration efforts' (paragraph 23). Furthermore, I continue to object to the fact that neither CAP nor Commission accounting procedures have been satisfactorily reformed before enlargement.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, on 23 November, Alexander Nikitin will appear in court again. He still has to face trial on an old case of “spying”. It became clear a long time ago that he has the information in the Bellona report from sources that are accessible to the general public. However, his expert knowledge made it possible for us to be made aware of an enormous hazard that is heading for us and is slumbering in the Arctic Ocean. He acted with a great sense of humanity. The EU has a special responsibility here because until now it has used the material that Alexander Nikitin compiled. One of the essential components of the Northern dimension that was decided on in Helsinki is the issue of cleaning the Arctic Ocean and averting the danger that could affect us all. We must therefore intervene more forcefully here so that Alexander Nikitin can finally be released and so that the accusations are dropped, because we all know that these proceedings are purely political and therefore the laws in Russia will also be infringed by these proceedings, because the old nomenclature will win again. I believe that Alexander Nikitin has acted with enormous consideration for others and with remarkable responsibility in making this material available to us. It is therefore necessary for the EU Mission in Moscow at least to observe this case, but also to intervene in the political dialogue, so that it is declared a political case and Alexander Nikitin can finally be released. Alexander Nikitin should be free and honoured!

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, I am pleased that the Liberal amendments were defeated and that I was therefore able to vote for this report but I would like to query one point made by Mr Busquin. He said that everyone working in Italian universities has to pass the same exams as Italian teachers have to pass. I do not see why that should be the case. We are supposed to have mutual recognition of qualifications across Europe so that you can qualify in your own country and then move to others. That is a basic issue in Mr Busquin's response which needs to be questioned and I am sorry to see that he has now left the Chamber.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, since Europe has such large numbers of sheep and goats it is necessary to introduce an efficient system for the identification of animals, which, at the same time, does not impose an administrative burden on producers. The IDEA project, implemented a few years ago by the European Commission, demonstrated that it is possible to implement an individual electronic identification system in the European Union. The proof that the system is viable can be found in the fact that Spain, a country which, together with the United Kingdom, has one of the most significant herds in the European Union, has just gone ahead with the purchase of a million devices which are placed in the digestive system of ruminants for the differentiation of the different genotypes of sheep and goats. Following the foot and mouth crisis, which decimated the United Kingdom's cattle stocks, it is urgent that we implement an individual identification system like the one which is being discussed, in order to try to prevent the recurrence of this type of veterinary epidemic. As a former chairperson of the Temporary Committee on Foot and Mouth Disease, I would like to congratulate the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and the European Parliament because we have been able to achieve compromise positions in the report approved in the Committee on Agriculture. I would like to point out that, at the end of the work carried out by the Temporary Committee on Foot and Mouth Disease, the European Parliament expressed its support for individual identification, a position which was taken up by the European Commission. The report we will vote on tomorrow contains two compromise amendments adopted by the Committee on Agriculture, which respect the interests of the European Union's producers. One of them relates to the age from which the identification of animals must be carried out. According to the compromise achieved, this is six months for intensive breeding and nine in the case of extensive breeding. The second compromise amendment, presented by the rapporteur, sets the date of July 2007 for the introduction of electronic identification, which sends a clear message to both breeders and the industry manufacturing the devices necessary for the electronic system. I therefore hope that the results achieved in the Committee on Agriculture are fully adopted in plenary. However, I would like to express my support for the technical modifications introduced by our shadow rapporteur, in the only amendment which has been presented in plenary, relating to the document on the transport of animals. I would also like to end by congratulating the rapporteur, who has made the effort to achieve compromise and to work in favour of identification and therefore in favour of cattle breeding. Congratulations, Mr Adam.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, on behalf of my Group, I should also like to express our disappointment at our failure to successfully conclude this matter, in spite of all of the efforts we all made so that the European Union could adopt a strong position, with the backing of Parliament, on something as important as the World Conference against Racism. We did all we could to achieve this as, in my view, did Mrs Ludford, the rapporteur. In addition to this, Mr President, on behalf of the Group of the , I should like to say that I found the references one member of Parliament made to our support of radicalism and the extreme , wholly unacceptable, as indeed was the reference made to the idea that the terrorist group ETA, which a few hours ago murdered someone in my home town, is an extreme -wing group. These people have an exclusive and partisan vision of nationalism and have nothing to do with any of us, or any European s, or with any ideology that is not based on exclusion and racism.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, today, on behalf of the European Commission, President Prodi set out a position of great political and institutional importance. Adhering to Jean Monnet’s vision and the Community method, the Commission is today reinvigorating its ambitious and forward-looking role in European integration with a blueprint that meets our expectations. I would like to focus on three issues: firstly, Europe has to become a global political power. The new position of Secretary of the Union for Foreign Affairs would represent a strong Europe, able to set out its position in international bodies through a single representative. Mr President, you are aware of my personal desire to see faster work and a substantial increase in the quality of our capabilities in the area of defence. I am saying this as a friend of the United States: the world will be a better place if it contains a strong Europe, capable of acting on the strength of its values. Secondly, the Commission has to become the sole repository of executive power, reinforced in its role as the expression of the common interest of the Union; in other words, we must move towards a genuine Union government, elected by the democratic representatives of European citizens and accountable to the institutions which represent the citizens and the States. Other institutional figures, lacking a clearly defined role and which would undermine the unity of representation abroad, must not interfere with the government of the Union. Thirdly, Europe must become more effective and coherent, capable of vigorously rebutting the attacks launched by eurosceptic groupings which, in my country too, use Europe as a scapegoat for domestic failures. In short, to create a partnership between Europe and its citizens, we need to simplify our procedures and make them more transparent by making codecision the rule, reducing the number of legislative instruments, abolishing unanimous voting and reforming the way the Union is financed. I would add that we must strive to combat corruption and promote the pluralism of information. Mr President, only if we proceed on this basis will we be able to conclude this process, at the end of 2003, with a Constitution and a second, high quality, credible Treaty of Rome.

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, I will talk exclusively about the issue of the Court of Justice and the Court of First Instance. Mr MacCormick has already made some general comments and I do not think I need to insist on the importance of this institution. However, there are two issues that concern us. Firstly, that enlargement is scheduled for 1 January 2004, with it will come appeals and the Court of Justice and the Court of First Instance must be prepared. To wait for the 2004 budget to cover these needs would seem to me irresponsible, since the Court must be prepared at least a year before the date on which enlargement takes place. The second issue that concerns us is that of lawyer-linguists. The Court constantly needs to translate texts, submit them, publish them and make them known in the different Community languages. It is not the fault of the Court that the European Union has decided to have such an excessive number of working languages. If these lawyer-linguists are not professionalised in the manner proposed by the Court of Justice, we will find that both the Court of First Instance and the Court of Justice will be faced with enormous difficulties in terms of retaining this kind of staff. Professonalisation is therefore necessary at the moment, since without it we will have no guarantee that the Court will have the necessary staff to carry out its work.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, Commissioner, on the eve of 2003, the Greek Presidency has promised to give the very fullest attention to the decisions taken in Amsterdam, Tampere and Seville. Greece’s extensive coastline forms the external border of the European Union with the countries of Asia, countries from which immigrants are now flooding into Europe, which is why it is vital that the Greek Presidency introduce a framework policy to divide obligations and responsibilities fairly between the Member States of the European Union. Of course, as other members have also pointed out, immigration policy means more than just guarding borders. It means more than repressive measures, repatriation and readmission. It also means recognising the human rights and fundamental employment and civil rights of immigrants and what they have to offer and can contribute to the development of Europe. It means fully recognising the rights of anyone who has resided in the European Union for five years, as we have repeatedly proposed here in Parliament. It also means recognising that women who have left home under the threat of religious fundamentalism or barbaric traditions and practices which clash with the modern perception of respect for human rights have a right to apply for and be granted asylum.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, I would just like to raise four points. Firstly, the G8 recently reached agreement on the need to promote energy efficiency and renewable energy in developing countries. Mrs Schreyer referred to this (to the intelligent energy programme) earlier. My question to Mrs Schreyer is: Would she say that EUR 19 million over four years is adequate for preparatory work in over 80 – 90 countries? My question to Mr Nielson is: It is recognised that energy is a factor in poverty for the developing countries, so could he tell us how he proposes to coordinate his work with other DGs to tackle this? My second point is that Commission Patten has made statements that the EU should have a poverty focus in its development aid. Therefore, would you agree that it is inconsistent to increase funding, as foreign affairs amendments have done, to Latin America and MEDA lines, and actually take away money from Asia lines? What do you think of Mr. Elles' statement today that Afghanistan should be funded from the flexibility instrument? I would like to return to the Global Health Fund. I am not really satisfied with the response and the answer we have had from Commissioner Nielson. What I want to know, with regard to the EUR 35 million that we are proposing, is whether that is enough to get us a seat on the board? Is that adequate in terms of the EU leading the debate and fighting AIDS in the world? Finally, I would like to ask the Council their opinion on the U-turn in the PPE position, and the proposal to break the gentleman's agreement. In the July conciliation, the PPE agreed to the Council's budget, but this afternoon we were informed by Mr Elles that they will put EUR 6.3 million from their basics budget in the reserve. They are breaking their word, and if this amendment is accepted, what would the Council's response be? (Applause from the left)

Political group: PSE
Mr President, the Commission should perhaps finally decide whether it is satisfied with OLAF’s work or not. I almost have the impression that we are criticising OLAF out of the blue, yet I had the feeling that President Prodi has been taking OLAF apart with his criticisms while we have been defending it, since so many Members of this House, speaking in today’s debate, have stated that Eurostat is not an OLAF matter, it is a Commission matter. The Commission must finally adopt its own identifiable line here. Otherwise, I am very pleased that it is happy with everything to do with OLAF. In that case, though, I really do not want to hear any more, not from the President of the Commission, about the obvious shortcomings, in terms of quality, which have arisen in connection with Eurostat. That does not mean that we have not moved from our position, and I think there are still a number of misunderstandings as regards the independence of the Supervisory Committee. The Supervisory Committee must, like OLAF’s Director-General, be appointed on an interinstitutional basis; today, it is part of the Commission, and not – lest any myths arise – in a vacuum. We think that there must be a separation, and that includes a physical and financial separation. It is unacceptable that the staffing of the Supervisory Committee, which exercises a monitoring function, should be the ultimate responsibility of a body which is the subject of that monitoring. We have adopted a firm position here and I hope that this House will endorse this position tomorrow.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, while it is difficult to reach agreement amongst all the States, in this case it is even more so, because I do not believe we even agree – and I say this so that we may reflect on it – on the definition of harassment. Essentially, we can say that amongst the basic elements of this conduct appear the intention to do harm – whether by an employer, by managers or by work colleagues – the causing of harm within the sphere of the most essential personal rights and its complex, continued, predetermined and systematic nature. True harassment means hostile conduct against the personal dignity of the victim, insults, gibes, mockery, criticism, ridicule; these are hostile forms of conduct against their professionalism, which are manifested in monotonous, unnecessary, denigrating, abusive and disproportionate tasks. From time to time, we see in the media – and not just the sensationalist media – situations of this type, situations which, furthermore, occur directly or indirectly, that is to say, the creation of situations of ambiguity, the over-emphasis of errors and underplaying of achievements. These are situations that sometimes take the form of an externalised conflict and that on other occasions create or maintain a latent conflict, with repercussions for the person psychologically harassed, their family and their friends. The existence of these situations is always difficult to prove or demonstrate, and often difficult to classify from a legal point of view or as an administrative offence. Article 31(1) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights lays down that ‘Every worker has the right to working conditions which respect his or her health, safety and dignity’, and, according to Article 1, ‘Human dignity is inviolable. It must be respected and protected’. Commissioner, I believe that a great deal has been done during this legislature in the field of health and safety in the workplace, but the situation I have described, fortunately or otherwise, warrants our getting to work, because, just as on other occasions we have referred to the protection of dignity and the right to health and safety, in this case we must clearly confront the need to protect human dignity.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, I should like to inform the House that an agreement was reached on the European arrest warrant at the end of the meeting between Prime Minister Verhofstadt and Prime Minister Berlusconi. Italy will sign the proposal, but the measures needed to change the Italian Constitution have been referred to the Italian Parliament, because, as certain emeritus judges of the constitutional court have observed, the European arrest warrant conflicts with the Constitution. The Italian Prime Minister has therefore asked Parliament itself to amend the Constitution. The press conference at which the news will be given is just starting. (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE
Commissioner, I just want to clarify matters as there seems to be very bad interpretation – I was not talking about the Charter of Fundamental Rights but about the Social Charter including the rights of workers. These include working conditions which I think are a corollary to the movement of services. What are the conditions under which services are provided? What are the conditions under which people are working? That is the corollary of free movement.

Political group: ELDR