GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Mr President, I find, somewhat to my consternation, that the vote on the report I was to present in plenary and which is on this morning’s agenda has been postponed inadvertently without anyone noticing. I understand that it is not easy, but changes to the agenda are something we need to be notified of. As a rule I am always here on Thursdays. This afternoon, however, I have to give a talk. So I will not be here for the votes this afternoon because I was not warned in time. I am one of those Members who attends sittings quite faithfully. I too would move that the vote be postponed to the November II part-session. First, however, there is just one point I would like to add. This morning we witnessed a moment of particularly extreme parliamentary idiocy. I do not know how much roll-call votes cost, but no doubt it comes to hundreds of thousands of French francs, or Belgian francs, out of our budget. Just to please some people, under ludicrous conditions, we have wasted time and money. Mr President, I feel you should refer the matter to the Conference of Presidents, so that excessive numbers of requests for split votes or roll-call votes can be identified and perhaps roll-call votes can even be restricted. All this is out of order and Parliament made itself look ridiculous this morning. (Applause)

Political group: PSE
The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) has done an extremely good job of improving knowledge of drugs and drug addiction, by providing comparable data and information and primarily by monitoring and identifying dangerous substances that appear on the market and by proposing that these should be banned. It makes sense that, for reasons of clarity and openness, the Regulation establishing the EMCDDA should be recast, particularly in order to adapt it to the enlargement of the EU and to broaden its mandate to cover polydrug use, involving both legal and illegal substances. I cannot, however, accept the attempt to confer evaluation tasks on the EMCDDA. The intention is that the Monitoring Centre should not simply collect data but should also evaluate national policies and strategies and assess trends in drug consumption. This would confer on an agency powers that are currently held by the Member States. The Monitoring Centre should be entrusted with the task of furnishing overall information, in other words, of collecting, analysing and disseminating data on all aspects of the phenomenon of drugs and drug addiction, which will help to provide the Community and its Member States with an overall view of the drug and drug addiction phenomenon. This task should not prejudice the allocation of powers between the Community and its Member States with regard to the legislative provisions concerning drug supply and demand.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, Commissioner, rapporteur, thank you so much for all your efforts. I can remember that these related to my first parliamentary questions, for I was rather unfamiliar with the mechanism for matters of this kind. During the Christmas recess last year, I was reading something about the illegal deployment of Eastern European drivers, social dumping as it is referred to, and such like. Probably like many others, I then thought that something should simply be done about this. I am grateful for the fact that this issue was addressed reasonably promptly. It is not just the trade union associations, but it was also the employers who sounded the alarm. It was a joint effort. I would like to make it clear at this stage that we are keen supporters of the free movement of labour. Needless to say, there is an entire debate, specifically in Germany and Austria, with regard to border traffic, and there are all kinds of problems, but if work is done in the European Union – enlarged or not, as the case may be – it should be carried out under the working conditions and working hour regulations which apply here. It is as simple as that. That means that some countries should also consider whether, slowly but surely, they should start introducing minimum wages and minimum standards, for otherwise these areas would be difficult to verify. I regret the fact that we are not focusing our attention initially on third countries. The underlying reasoning for this is explained later on. I would mainly underline the importance of evaluation, for it is not just this construction, but also the move to Luxembourg, along with a whole series of other measures, which have led to this. We should make sure that we are not always lagging behind.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, ever since 1989 I have been trying from within this Parliament to create more favourable conditions for small and medium-sized enterprises. Early on, I, together with various organisations, approached each new presidency with an explicit demand for a Council programme for SMEs. We were always rewarded with fine pronouncements but rarely with deeds. Now the Council, under Portuguese Presidency, has come up with a charter. I am pleased about that but, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I want you, with your last breath as President, to guarantee me the following. Firstly, that the implementation of the charter is and remains a matter for the Council itself. Education and training are matters for subsidiarity, a message your Council never tires of drumming into Parliament. As I see it, looking after fledgling firms has never been one of Europe’s tasks, whereas the general climate is, as is keeping complex legislation to a minimum. But making European legislation correspond with national legislation for example, including the legal hotchpotch that usually results, that is your concern. Benchmarking is all well and good but a European Union that bases its entire policy on such a fad is suffering from a dearth of policy. Follow the example of the United States for once. Lifelong learning is the responsibility of the Member States. And woe betide you if you fail to get this off the ground quickly given current demographic trends. On-line access for companies. You must ensure that companies in your own country enter the digital age, including the section of the business community that still do not have computers on their premises. The internal market and gaining access to it, that is the stuff that European issues are made of. But it is for Member States to ensure that they have sufficient easily accessible complaint procedures. Mr President-in-Office of the Council, more often than not it is the Member States themselves that institute measures which impede the market. This is a scandal. Take for example the difficulties that contractors encounter if they want to work over the border. Parliament intends to keep a critical eye on the Council when it comes to the implementation of the charter in the Member States. We are holding you to your word and want to see the deed that follows the word. All that remains is for me to convey to you my best wishes for our former colleague Mr Cravinho, who I hear is seriously ill.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, the excellent work done by Mr Poignant and Mr Gallagher deserves recognition, but I sincerely believe that their zeal – and they are people with vast experience and knowledge of the sector – has in some respects led them to go beyond the subject of their reports. The problem is that the amendments emphasised this view, and generally in some respects they have even come to approve contradictory points. I hope that in tomorrow’s votes these issues may be calmly corrected, because my group would like to vote for both these reports. As for the matter of fisheries and globalisation, it must be recognised that the low level of Community self-sufficiency in fisheries products has encouraged the liberalisation of trade sooner and more fully than in other sectors. While the nature of fishing itself, the growing nationalisation of fisheries or other circumstances may have their own particular features, they also have effects similar to those of globalisation and can have an especially hard social impact, with sometimes serious effects on working conditions or the displacement of fishery-related activities. I think the excellent Varela report points out corrective measures for these negative effects. I should also like to congratulate Mr Cunha. Finally, on the subject of Morocco I want to point out two things: first, the negative effects that the lack of agreement is having and will have in disadvantaged areas of the Community both on the fishermen themselves and on fishery-related dependent activities. Because they are disadvantaged areas, restructuring activities stand very little chance of success. The second point is that the attitude of the Moroccan negotiators hardly squares with that of a state linked with us through an association agreement. In this situation it is to be hoped that the Commission will be able to make the Moroccan authorities understand that the association can only be based on reciprocity, and that, if necessary, it will be able to adopt suitable measures. What the media is saying is that if there is agreement, it may even be highly detrimental to the interests of the European Union. I should like there to be an agreement, and I hope the Commission will be able to assert its right to reciprocity.

Political group: GUE-NGL
I support this initiative and stress the urgent need to adopt a set of regulations on protecting the environment through criminal law. Various environmental disasters have occurred, such as the recent sinking of the Prestige, off the coast of Galicia. The necessary measures must be adopted on pollution by ships, in order to prevent this type of disaster from reoccurring. I agree with the rapporteur’s statement that the proposal for a directive on protecting the environment through criminal law must be adopted as swiftly as possible, because it provides for the harmonisation of criminal and other deterrent sanctions applicable to acts of pollution which infringe Community law. This Framework Decision is intended to strengthen this criminal law framework with measures designed to harmonise Member States’ legislative and regulatory provisions on the crime of ship-source pollution, to provide jurisdictional competence (by preventing conflicts of competence) and to promote cooperation between Member States (by establishing contact points for exchanging information). We must end the variation in current levels of sanctions, which ultimately creates distortions in terms of the potential consequences, in particular the financial consequences, of an incident of pollution for the place in which it occurs, because this pollution might affect several Member States of the Union.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, I appreciate that wide-ranging coverage of the issues by Mr Corrie. I would like to concentrate on my view that poverty eradication in Africa must begin with children and the realisation of children’s rights. The Cairo summit will be followed up by another forum in Dakar on basic education. The need for basic education is the single most important cause of global poverty. Therefore, we need to ensure that girls in particular have equal access at least to educational advantage. We can see that education will deliver, it will stimulate the economy, it will offer opportunities to control population and increase health awareness. Dakar is an opportunity to deliver on internationally agreed targets. The EU should put its political will behind universal primary education by the year 2015. Clearly commitments made a decade ago have not materialised. Africa is falling deeper into mass illiteracy and poverty and being further marginalised from mainstream developments in the economic and democratic fields. In sub-Saharan Africa more children are out of school now than a decade ago. 40 million African children today are not attending school. One third of the classrooms in Africa do not even have a blackboard. They have no toilets. 70% of their schools do not have any clean water. Teachers are under-qualified, often unqualified, and they struggle without pencils, exercise books or blackboards, often trying to teach children who are simply too hungry to listen or concentrate. Julius Nyrere, one of Africa’s most famous teachers, in those post-independence, optimistic days, said education is not a way of escaping poverty, it is a way of fighting it. Some of you may be aware that Julius Nyrere spent his spare time translating Shakespeare into Swahili. But that man’s wonderful dreams were lost. He lived to see one third of African men illiterate and two thirds of African women. I urge the Commission and the Council to make the link between poverty eradication and basic education. The benefits for us all will be seen in increased child life expectancy, cuts in population growth and improvements in farm production. We have the blueprints and I urge all of those with the political will to take action, to deliver for the children of Africa.

Political group: PSE
Madam President, I will add to the unanimity of the evening and say that I support the adoption of Culture 2000 and add my thanks to the rapporteur, Mr Graça Moura, who took over from our former colleague Nana Mouskouri. Both of them have done a first-class job. Alongside the debate we had earlier on in the day, culture may not seem that important, but it is; and we have to be careful in the European Parliament not to allow the urgent to get in the way of the important. Why do I say that culture is important? Well in simple economic terms, Europe’s culture adds to genuine prosperity. Where would Europe’s tourism industry be without the richness of our culture? But, more importantly than that, cultural activities are what make mankind civilised. Culture is at the root of our democratic beliefs; and an uncultured society is not going to sustain tolerance and freedom and democracy. Cultural diversity is important, and it is under threat. However, it is not under threat from Europe. Many people in my country say they see British culture being under threat, for example, from Portugal, from Germany, from Finland, for heaven’s sake. We do drink port wine, and we do like German beer, and we even use Finnish saunas, but it is not from Europe that culture is under threat. What I do see right across Europe is people drinking Coca Cola, eating hamburgers, wearing baseball caps, watching Hollywood films and often doing all this at the same time. Now I do not believe that protectionism and regulation is the way of defending Europe’s culture, but I do believe in lending a helping hand when we can. That is what Culture 2000 is about. So, I say to the Council of Ministers: Keep this programme genuinely under review. Are we doing enough? And, I say to Madame Reding, thank you for the support and the help you have given so far, keep up the good work, we are on your side.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, obviously I join with other Members in thanking our two rapporteurs, but I should also like to pay tribute to the European civil servants. Just imagine: 25 000 people manage this unlikely continent which invents a new future for itself every day. It is a tremendous task and at the moment it is being performed to perfection. Thank you, therefore, to the civil servants who support us. This report, Commissioner, contains interesting and balanced elements, particularly after the amendments proposed by Parliament. They are appropriate in order to make the European Civil Service more dynamic. I shall not repeat what some other Members have said, better than I could. I shall concentrate on Amendments Nos 58 and 59 which would enable us to treat parliamentary assistants as contract staff of the Communities. These amendments are very positive. They were tabled – and at this point I shall address the Council bench so that it can take note – by the five major groups in the House. Consequently, before the Council waves them away with a flick of its somewhat disdainful hand, I invite it to take a closer look at them. If the Council needs a moment to reflect, that will in no way detract from its responsibilities towards the European Parliament with regard to the Gillig report, a report on the same subject which has been awaiting attention for too long. That report made it possible to amend a rule so as to give our assistants the option of choosing their national social insurance cover. The fact that the Council has not yet reacted shows a lack of respect for the agreement which it concluded with Parliament, and in legal terms it places it in an utterly impossible position. As the Vice-President responsible for this matter, whose patience, I can assure you, is pretty well exhausted, if this blocking tactic persists, I shall be obliged to condemn publicly and vigorously the nature of the blocking and those who are responsible for it. If that were to happen, it is by no means certain that certain Member States who pretend to be ardent supporters of social policy and transparency will emerge with their pretensions increased or even intact.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I appeal to Mr Barón Crespo and the Socialist Group. We have reached an impasse. I fully understand that you want Mr Le Pen to lose his mandate. Fortunately, however, this issue does not depend on our political desires but on the law and on the fact that, at the moment, we are faced with a legal situation which goes against what you are proposing and which is forcing us into a stalemate. The President is right. Either this is a legal proposal from the committee and we can vote on this basis or this is not a legal proposal, in which case you are asking for one to be drawn up. If you want a vote as an indication of our position, that is entirely up to you, but it would be wise to reject this as I believe there is a contradiction. I do not often agree with Mrs Garaud but in this case she is right. There is a contradiction in French law which states that a decision is not final and not suspensive. Understand that if you can, but it is up to the French Parliament to reform this law. In our opinion – and on this point, Mr Wurtz, I cannot agree with you – the French State, the Italian State and the German State are sovereign. The European Parliament is also sovereign and can adopt a position contrary to a state decision. This is my conception of Europe. In the current situation, I would simply ask you to say that we will wait and press for a decision by the Council of State as to whether or not Mr Le Pen’s request is suspensive. This can happen very quickly. This would not be a decision on the substance, even though it is purely a legal matter, but on the form. If the Council of State decides today that its decision is not suspensive, the European Parliament can, within 48 hours, take the necessary decision. I would therefore ask you to withdraw your request for a vote so that we do not reach a total impasse. (Applause)

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, the request for urgent procedure cannot be accepted by Parliament as the Council has not forwarded to Parliament a text to which the international agreement makes reference, namely the Commission's draft decision on adequacy, declaring that passengers' data are adequately protected by the US; nor has it received the so-called undertakings by the US administration. In other words, we still have no guarantee that European passenger data transferred to the US will not be passed on to third countries. This is the first vote of the new enlarged Parliament, the only democratically elected institution that represents 450 million citizens. The Council is asking us to vote with closed eyes on a question that relates to our fundamental rights. If we accept this request, Parliament cannot be taken seriously. In addition, there is a procedural defect in that translation into the new languages is not available. I ask you to withdraw this item and also to respect our referral of the matter to the Court of Justice. (Applause)

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, I agree with that remark, for I am surprised at some of the statements made here. This is in fact the first time this kind of observation, which was not heard in committee, has been made, and I regret it. Today we are to vote on this resolution, which is why we are asking for a vote on the work done in committee.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Madam President, like, I am sure, many of us Members of the European Parliament, I consider the citizens of the other side of the Atlantic, in America, the citizens of all the Americas, to be our friends and my friends. I myself, as you know, have often stepped onto the soil of the United States, even if only on Saturdays, when I left the cruise ship the Oceanic, on which I had embarked as a crew member. I experienced the warmth, the enthusiasm, the creativity and the intelligence of the American citizens. I hope, therefore, that this collaboration will continue, and will continue also between American pensioners and European pensioners, so that a way can be found for all of us to live better.

Political group: PPE-DE
Madam President, I would firstly like to thank the representatives of the Council and the Commission for their speeches, and point out that when our delegation of MEPs visited Washington, Members of the US Congress asked us for help in neutralising and paralysing the neo-conservative and, in some ways, almost fascist, tendencies of the Bush administration. In other words, they expressed their desire for a relationship between the US and European people which contributes to peace in the world. If it is shown that the US State Department was providing misinformation when it said that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq – and we are seeing that this was merely a manipulation – and if we remember that in the document from that Department of 20 September 2002, the UN, the European Union and international law were dispensed with and it is stated simply that the United States are going to dictate laws in the future, I believe we are facing a great threat to the world and also to Europe. Fortunately, Europe is based on peace, international law and the peaceful resolution of conflicts, and must play a major role in order to make progress in that direction and prevent the new threats of this conservative Bush administration, thereby restoring the friendship between the American people and ourselves.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, in 1990, as Parliament's rapporteur on what became the Maastricht report, I urged the establishment of what we now know as the 'Committee of the Regions'. I did so because local authorities in regions play a vital role in implementing European law. Given that role, I felt it was right that they should have a say in the adoption of European law. The Napolitano report takes that principle and moves it forward in the context of today's Europe. I welcome what Mr Napolitano has argued for in terms of the higher status of regions and local authorities in European decision-making. But I also accept that he is right to do that in a non-prescriptive way that does not interfere with the internal constitutions of the Member States. By making a case for the regions but leaving it to the individual Member States to decide how to implement his recommendations, he has struck the right balance. For example, we have just heard an argument for regions to be involved in the Council of Ministers. I support that argument, but each Member State must do that in the context of its own constitution. Finally, the one weakness in the Napolitano report is that it has not given enough emphasis to the role of regions with legislative authority. I hope that the Commission will look at that and find a way of engaging them more coherently in EU activities.

Political group: PSE