GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Madam President, Mr President of the Commission, I greatly admire the openness with which you admit that the European Union must change fundamentally. You gave consideration to important questions of principle in your programme. I believe that the public will start to show more interest in politics if we can tackle the major issues alongside the day-to-day ones. At the same time, however, it has to be said that, unfortunately, your programme reminds me in many ways of a party manifesto. There are a lot of good intentions in it, but it very much lacks concrete proposals concerning how this can all be achieved. As in any other party manifesto, it is full of contradictions. I would like to take this opportunity to help you recognise them. First let me speak about the economy and social development. We have to be able to think hard about how we can coordinate the aim of competitiveness with the aim of full employment; that is what was mentioned in your programme. Should we at long last be drafting convergence criteria, in which – as you in fact hint at in this programme – the aim would be that unemployment in no Member State should be higher than, say, the three most successful countries in this matter? Ecological tax reform is what my group would like to stress the importance of, because we can only create employment and sustainable development by changing our taxation structure. But, unfortunately, as we all know, this is an area where the European Union is totally unable to act. Do please raise this issue at the intergovernmental conference. The EU can only achieve authority in the fact that it focuses on tasks that individual countries cannot attend to alone. In this respect, Parliament will definitely defend, along with yourselves, the importance of supranational decision-making. One contradiction within your programme relates to globalisation. I think it is very creditable that you should mention the concept of ‘global administration’, as others too have said here. However, please learn from the events of Seattle: we have to be able to combine the freedom in world trade, on the one hand, with all those values of human importance that we wish to defend, on the other. You must embark on a dialogue with the international community. Do please try to make the international organisations democratic. The European Union could be critically important in a process in which the United Nations and the WTO really do become subject to democratic monitoring. We can submit motions for this together with you. Finally, I consider it a very positive sign that you speak so often about the civil society, although, unfortunately, this is another contradiction. You ought to also be able to draw conclusions at the IGC. We have to table motions proposing that our citizens might really have a direct impact on decision-making. What you just said is absolutely true: people want more engaged democracy. In my opinion, this is the only way if we want to gain the approval of the people with regard to Europe and their interest in Europe too.

Political group: Verts-ALE
I will be very brief, Madam President. Moreover, I feel that this issue should be discussed in more detail, perhaps at a more convenient time. I subscribe to the view that Parliament should work on Fridays. Solutions can, in all probability, be found by putting debates rather than voting sessions on the agenda, for we are all aware that Fridays are convenient for interaction with the Commission and, therefore, important in terms of our political work in the area of our function as MEPs representing our home territories. When we discuss this issue, it would, however, be preferable for Members to refrain, when considering the action to be taken, from laying themselves open to misrepresentative publicity regarding the nature of Parliament’s function. There are certain types of action which give our countries and our electorate the impression that, in actual fact, the European Parliament spends its time fooling around and doing no work. The effect of these actions is therefore damaging, whatever the motive behind them. I therefore hope that we will be responsible enough to reach a point at which the debate can brought to a definitive conclusion without going down a path which none of us want to take and without laying ourselves open to criticism.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, for years I have been calling for the school milk scheme to be changed. I think it is complete nonsense. It is totally wrong from a nutritional point of view and it is impossible to administer. Currently, full-cream milk is fully subsidised, semi-skimmed milk is semi-subsidised and skimmed milk receives no subsidy. The aim of schemes such as this is to do away with surplus stocks, and since full-cream milk contains the most butterfat, it receives the highest subsidy. We should instead award subsidies per pupil. I would have preferred it if we had set milk prices lower so that we could abolish the bureaucratic milk quotas. In the longer term we must change the EU's agricultural policy so that we can put an end to artificial excess prices and surplus stocks. However, the school milk scheme is one of the better schemes. It is not just beneficial to farmers. The scheme is also to the advantage of children and their parents, especially if it is changed so that it offers subsidies to low-fat products. Children do not need so much fat. Furthermore, a scheme with subsidies per pupil would be much easier to administer. There is an enormous amount of administration involved in the present scheme. I have received many complaints from schools which cannot work out how to administer the scheme. It is a real science calculating the fat percentages in milk and cheese. The schools often end up having to pay back large sums. It is not that they are out to cheat; they simply cannot work out how to administer the scheme. I think, therefore, that we must vote for the amendments of my good colleague and friend, Niels Busk. The scheme which he is recommending is administratively and nutritionally the only correct one.

Political group: PSE
I want to thank the Swedish Presidency, and I want to thank Mr Danielsson for his answer. I want also, of course, to express my gratitude for the committed work that has been done to give the EU a new approach to the principle of public access to official records, in this case EU documents. I nonetheless wish to ask a question. Might we in Sweden see a development in which representatives of Swedish authorities practise self-censorship in situations in which Brussels and European authorities differ from Sweden in the assessments they make as to whether, and to what extent, the secrecy rules are to be applied? This issue of self-censorship and of being able to adopt a distinctively Swedish view when a different assessment is made in Brussels is a relevant subject for discussion.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, a number of references were made to us, the British Labour MEPs. We clearly recognise the importance of this issue for our political group and for working people, particularly the issue of work/life balance and health and safety. That has been established and eloquently spoken about by a number of speakers. We do not want to see a long-hours culture; we want to see higher productivity. We want to see working people have the kind of work that allows them the leisure they deserve. We fully support the repeated statements by our government stating that the opt-out should not be abused and that the exercise of the opt-out must be truly voluntary to be legal under UK law. We need clarification of the SIMAP and Jaeger judgments. As British Labour MEPs, we also believe that it is inappropriate for infringement proceedings to be taken against the UK Government. We have tabled Amendment 1, which deletes the recommendation that the UK Government should be subject to infringement proceedings. However, we believe in the principle of working time and want to see progress, particularly in the health sector.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, when Peter the Great wanted to make Russia more Western, he dressed up the Russian aristocracy in Western European clothes and moved the capital of Russia westwards from Moscow to St Petersburg. President Putin's westward-looking government has described the European Union as its 'natural political partner', and until recently Russia has appeared to dress in the clothes of Europe: the clothes of free trade, the clothes of political and civil rights, the clothes of infant democracy. The Group welcomed this EU-Russia summit. We are right to look for political and economic spaces where our two societies can work together. Under the right circumstances, we welcome closer economic relations between the European Union and Russia. Easier travel is a necessary and important part of making this work. Russia and the Union share a common security environment and a high degree of mutual interdependence, so we are right to seek to make our joint borders more secure and our shared hemisphere more safe. We welcome Russia's ambitions to join the WTO and this may be possible, even if it is made more difficult by recent events. However, Europe is right to rail against Russian repression and governmental meddling in the lives of its neighbours. The issue of Chechnya will not go away, nor will Russia's refusal to ratify Kyoto. It is not enough to wear the clothes of Europe. Closer relations should carry the price of full subscription to modern European values, and at the very least we must continue to be critical and frank. At this summit, Mr President-in-Office, our position was badly compromised by those charged with representing us. The presidency's ill-considered comments on Chechnya and on the arrest and detention of Mikhail Khodorkovsky were out of line. Mr Berlusconi speaks for Europe and he should choose his words with care. His own presidency drafted a declaration last month that was strongly critical of Russian conduct in Chechnya. However, not only was there no reference to Chechnya in the summit communiqué, but the President of the Council even thought it appropriate to contradict Europe's affirmed position with an improvised display of bluster worthy of a cheap lawyer. In any case, why should we deny the difficulties of the Russian minorities in the Baltic states? They are nothing compared to the persecution of the Chechens. Internal security may be complementary to justice and human rights, as the President-in-Office said, but as practised in Chechnya it is not. We have condemned Russian action in Chechnya and the attempt to intimidate sources of political opposition in Russia for good reason. Despite their European clothes, it is not clear that Mr Putin's government shares our values of democracy, human rights, the rule of law and freedom of expression. If it does, why is Mr Khodorkovsky in jail?

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, I should like to make a comment on the Katiforis report. I share the concern about the less privileged regions. I have the feeling that some States – and I am thinking of France, but do not rule out that there may be others – use the whole tobacco excise issue to put themselves in a good light abroad by adopting a progressive policy, that is to say a policy that promotes health and is against tobacco, while they actually devote too little attention to compensatory measures for their regions that rely on tobacco for a living. I also heard in Corsica a complaint similar to the one expressed by our fellow MEP. I therefore believe that those in Paris care little about the suffering in the regions in their concern to make us more healthy. Not by cutting down on sex, but by cutting down on smoking, Mr Fatuzzo. Rapport Van den Berg (A5-0464/2001)

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, I thought we were going to hold the debate on the Prestige on Thursday, but I see that all the groups are speaking and I would not want my group, on whose behalf my colleague Mr Jové Peres and I shall speak on Thursday, to fail to give its opinion and say what I believe should be done. Not only must we criticise what is happening now, which is beyond repair, since this is an economic disaster for all the fishermen and shellfish-gatherers – as previous speakers have said – but we must also see that this is an ecological disaster. When a proposal is tabled to strengthen legislation, we must all vote for it. The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy is currently debating a highly important directive, whose rapporteur, Mr Papayannakis, is a member of our group. This directive refers to liability for environmental damage. I consider this to be an extremely important issue. We shall see how Members vote over the next few months.

Political group: GUE-NGL
The British Conservative delegation is strongly supportive of Human Rights, properly defined, but abstained on the Van Hecke Annual Report on human rights in the world in 2001 because: -

Political group: PPE-DE
I realise that it was hard to tell when the Belgian Government was acting in its capacity of President of the European Union and when it was simply acting as a Member State, but I would like to know what really happened and why all these measures were adopted despite being condemned by various speakers as breaching the rights of citizens who were demonstrating peacefully in Belgium during the last summit.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, in my country fisherwomen represent all that is strongest and most courageous. I also think that this evening’s debate, once again involving almost exclusively women, shows that we who are taking part in this discussion may well be descended from these brave and strong women of the coasts. Ladies and gentlemen, political movements which have long supported the very principles found in this document have been mocked in many contexts. The movement which I represent nationally has long stood for the principles about which we are now speaking, but we have had to suffer a great deal of ridicule. It is important that we support the binding recommendations that there is a wish to introduce for Member States, so that we can get away from a situation in which the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing and in which fishermen are perhaps in even more danger of extinction than many animal species. We have an unequal situation with unequal protection of what is to be found in the coastal areas. We also have a situation whereby we want more sea traffic without wanting to provide protection. The rapporteur asked why our group opposes a binding legal framework, but the explanations she has given have not convinced us. We need a legal basis for the matter, but not binding legislation. We must rely on local action and joint local planning.

Political group: ELDR
Madam President, I agree with the fine words with which the rapporteur began his intervention and I must add that, during the conciliation procedure, I was personally a little disappointed with the Council. On the one hand, it continued to refuse to accept the term “European cultural policy” or other similar terms, even undervaluing the terms of the Treaty, and it defines “Culture 2000” simply as an instrument for cultural cooperation and no more. On the other hand, it has shown complete intransigence with regard to the funds requested by this Parliament, which were minimal anyway. Incidentally, this last point would be unfair to fourteen Members of the Council, since it was just one, the Netherlands, which was responsible for that intransigence. It has once again been demonstrated that conciliation is incompatible with the demand for unanimity in the Council. This demand makes conciliation almost impossible and even affects the dignity of the parliamentary institution. However, Madam President, these considerations must not hide the fact that the joint text which we will vote on tomorrow, and which the Socialists will vote in favour of, will put in place one of the European Union’s most important programmes. By taking action in the field of culture, we are directly contributing to the construction of a European soul, especially given the fact that the sub-programmes which make up “Culture 2000” are superb. In recent years, these have been amongst the programmes most eagerly accepted by the youngest and most dynamic citizens of the European Union. Lastly, I would like to mention the profoundly human impression I have formed of the rapporteur, Mr Graça Moura: his knowledge, his sense of balance, his intellectual qualities, make him, in my opinion, the best possible rapporteur this report could have had. Congratulations! Finally, I would like to congratulate Commissioner Reding, Vice-President Imbeni and Mr Gargani, chairman of the Committee on Culture, for the firm and intelligent position which, each within his own role, they have maintained during the entire conciliation process.

Political group: PSE
Mr President-in-Office, from what you have just said, is there therefore an understanding or an expectation in E-11 that after they have had an informal discussion about the euro in Euro-11, they will all vote the same way when they go to Ecofin, even if they disagreed originally? Is there a procedural expectation that all eleven will vote the same way in the formal decision-making in Ecofin?

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, I would like to draw Parliament’s attention to an event that took place yesterday, which I felt was somewhat lacking in respect for the European Parliament. I was in this Chamber, expecting to hear a response to a question of mine to the Commission which had been placed third. Of course the question was not answered, as there was no time, and I then found out that Commissioner de Palacio, Vice-President of the Commission, answered one of the questions intended to be answered in writing directly to some television cameras. This question had been placed at number 90 and concerned a matter relating to the Spanish State, in response to a question from a Socialist MEP, accompanied by a Member from the Group of the . Mrs de Palacio’s statement concerned a non-existent matter, because she was answering the Socialist MEP’s interpretation of the subject, and I consider that using a question to make it seem as if the European Union had answered an important and delicate question equates to manipulating this institution. She answered a question which, in any case, should have been answered by the Council. I do not think this institution should continue to be used to defend positions which, like all positions, are debatable. Regardless of what takes place in Spain and what is thought there, this institution must not be manipulated.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, I would like to thank both Mrs Péry and Commissioner Diamantopoulou for being here today. From the reports and speeches that we are considering today we can deduce, as many of us already knew, that the problem of equal opportunities is a structural problem and that in order to deal with it we need global strategies, because as women we are not a category or a homogenous social group or indeed any sort of group. In the European Union we are currently running the risk of our debate being elitist and of the progress only reaching some of the more informed and more privileged women, leaving behind the rest, who are young women, immigrant women, single mothers, victims of the white slave trade, etc. They suffer from multiple discrimination. We cannot continue with an elitist debate, we cannot continue to have progress only benefiting those women who enjoy greater opportunities. Our efforts need to be directed at the women who have the most problems, who are certainly the majority in the European Union. We therefore need to assess the real situation of women, we need to draw up indicators and we need to make our political action binding, so that progress really reaches everyone and not just a few.

Political group: PSE
When the Council adopted a directive in 1999 authorising the application of reduced VAT rates to certain labour-intensive services, it was understood that this was an experimental measure due to expire on 31 December 2002. Given the circumstances, the decision to extend this measure until the end of 2003 is a positive factor, as emphasised by the rapporteur. In fact, we need to prevent a legal vacuum from being created after 31 December 2002, as this would be harmful to the businesses concerned, in particular, very small, small and medium-sized enterprises. The hotel and catering sector must benefit from a preferential VAT rate, given the very high level of social and fiscal charges that it pays in general. Employers in the catering sector, which is highly labour-intensive, have difficulties both in financing their investments and in recruiting additional staff. Workers in this sector quite rightly consider that reducing the rate of VAT would allow a significant number of employees to be recruited. A reduction in VAT rates would also allow many establishments to adjust working hours. Lastly, this measure would allow tax to be collected more fairly. - Report Busk (A5-0362/2002)

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, after years of work on this report, we have now arrived at what I hope is a final position in Parliament. We largely have Mr Bowe to thank for this. The rapporteur has done a fantastic job. In this connection, I want to congratulate him on the report. Let us just remember that genetic engineering provides humanity with new, unguessed at opportunities. Just as always in the past, however, new knowledge also entails new risks and increased responsibility. It is important that we be aware of the risks and accept our responsibility. This applies both to environmental issues and to ethical considerations. At the same time, it is important to make it clear that, when it comes to improving people’s health and guaranteeing sustainable production of more food for a growing world population, we must not reject any form of science. Instead, we must make use of science. I would therefore simply urge that we make our decision in accordance with the proposal before us today.

Political group: ELDR
I should like to thank President Prodi for again emphasising research and education, as is his wont, and their importance within the Lisbon process. I should also like to congratulate him for raising the problem of war with Iraq, which is clouding the atmosphere and will have a direct impact on the political and economic future of Europe. We started out with great expectations of the Lisbon process. However, in education, research, lifelong learning and training, it does not appear to be delivering the goods. 3% in research was an important target and the Commission deserves our praise for managing to push it through, but we come at it as if our hands were tied behind our back and we fail to make the necessary progress every year. We talk a great deal about training, but the private sector only invests 2.3% in training and progress with investments in lifelong learning, school-leavers and immigrant groups does not, unfortunately, give us cause for optimism. All this is taking place in a climate which discourages university researchers and teachers because decisions are not followed up with the practical policies needed. Education and training are not, unfortunately, at the top of the agenda, not even the Lisbon agenda. But we still believe they must remain at the heart of the policies, as they were formulated when the Lisbon process was first designed.

Political group: PSE