GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Thank you, Commissioner, for that honest answer. I believe it will enable us to continue this work together. I think it was obvious that small countries, which normally defend the Commission, did not defend the Commission’s position at the meetings in Vienna. I also think it is obvious that, in future discussions, we must take this into account when we look at the need to develop the discussion on European governance. I hope that, in those contexts in which we are to review the EU’s global role, the Commissioner will address the fact that this issue could be emphasised. I also hope that the Commission may, in any event, have informal contacts with those who represent the Member States in, for example, the management of the IMF. I believe they would view it as extremely valuable to be able to meet and go together through the IMF’s agenda in order to see the need for coordination if our interests are to be safeguarded in that organisation. I think the World Bank has other systems, but it is precisely the management of the IMF that ought to be able to meet and coordinate their efforts.

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, first of all, we want to denounce the fathomless hypocrisy of those who claim to be concerned about the environment and water, but whose criminal activities such as the attacks against Yugoslavia, aside from leaving thousands dead and wounded, have also brought about huge ecological disasters for water resources too, making them not only unusable but even extremely hazardous. Turning to the report, we believe that implementing the principle that the cost of water services should be recoverable must never result in additional taxation of the economically weakest strata, or even in the annihilation of small and medium-scale farmers because of the prohibitive cost of water for irrigation. We also wish to point out that especially in areas with acute drought problems such as my own country, and especially on the islands, funding must be provided for infrastructure for the saving of water, by increasing not its cost but its quantity. This should mainly be carried out by collecting the rainwater that now goes to waste, running off into the sea and eroding the soil, with all the problems that creates. In that spirit, we support Amendment No 107 by Mr Marset Campos. River waters must also be used more effectively so as to preserve life in areas that suffer chronic drought. Finally, as regards the Council’s allegation, which the Commission echoes, that there is no need for many specific references and explanations because they are covered by the examples given in the directive or contained elsewhere therein, this is chicanery. Its purpose is to preserve a semi-transparent field of action, which during the directive’s first implementation period will allow critical choices to be finalised to the benefit of big business.

Political group: GUE-NGL
I agree with what the President-in-Office has said about the value of these tools and place on the record my welcome for the Irish presidency programme in this respect. However, when he says that it is a useful basis, it would be instructive for all of us to learn what that means in practice. Otherwise, is this yet another piece of bureaucracy with no real purpose or real difference? What is it in the Irish presidency programme that is different because of the multiannual approach with the six presidencies together? Has there been an area where special emphasis has been placed that perhaps would not have been otherwise? I wonder, in relation to Ireland, for example – being a neutral country and not part of Nato – whether the advancement of the security strategy, the planned intervention in Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Defence Capabilities Agency are areas on which you will be putting extra emphasis. I would be genuinely interested to hear your views on those points.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, Article 255 of the Treaty is now, therefore, to be implemented and, with the Cashman report, we are moving a long way in the right direction, but not far enough. All the same, I should very much like to commend the considerable work Mr Cashman has put into this report. As I see it, it is one of the most important pieces of work done this year. The statement by the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, too, in fact goes farther than the Commission had proposed. We drew inspiration from the Nordic models for transparency in administration, for the Nordic countries have a very long tradition of having the right of access to documents. Naturally enough, it has also been the task of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport to emphasise that the language in the rules must be as clear, simple and understandable as possible. In the same way, we have also pointed out that openness and transparency are the best tools for solving the problems which may arise as a result of cultural and linguistic differences between the Member States, on this issue too. As I see it, right of access to documents is an important part of the EU’s information and communication policy. All investigations have, of course, revealed the distance between the European citizen and Brussels, and people themselves think they know too little about the EU. What they learn is at the media’s discretion or depends upon special interest groups, and they often feel powerless over and against the institutions. Now, they will be given the opportunity also to acquire some insight into circumstances which do not receive the special attention of the mass media and special interest groups and, in that way, they will be better able to participate in the open and democratic debate which is so important to confidence in the EU. I hope the Commission will make a big effort to inform people, including the man in the street, about this legislation, for the media and the special interest groups will no doubt find their own way to the documents they are interested in. I also hope that the Council and the Commission can give us a commitment today to continuing to deal with this issue in a positive way so that we might, as quickly as possible, start making the necessary changes to the business procedures in such a way as to benefit people and the image of the institutions. At a hearing in September in the Committee on Citizens’ Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, we learned that it takes ten years for an administration to change mentality, so the sooner we get started the better.

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, I too would like to thank Baroness Ludford. I think that her pertinent oral questions have enabled us to have a debate which is obviously very interesting. I agree essentially with her analysis of the situation. I believe that we cannot really accuse the Council of any lack of activity this year. One might even say that the Council was overcome by a kind of feverishness, obviously under the influence of the atmosphere produced by the events of 11 September, the ultra-security-consciousness of public opinion and, more directly, electoral concerns, which shows quite clearly that the study of a certain number of issues would profit by being shared equally between opinions, through the positions adopted by the European Parliament and the initiatives of the Commission. When it comes to the general interests of Europe, the sum of national egoisms does not constitute the law. I should like to draw your attention to work which is currently in progress. My group has had the pleasure of bringing together a certain number of involved people from all over Europe, who are studying the question of the isolation of foreigners in Europe. It is quite frightening. The analyses that have been made, on a country by country basis, show that there have been considerable developments which are quite alarming. Camps are proliferating, camps in all forms, of all kinds, with or without official status, open or closed, in which foreigners are sorted, guarded, imprisoned, punished, and kept handy for forced repatriation or whatever. I believe that these obvious denials of people’s right, for example to seek asylum in Europe, are extremely worrying. I would ask the Commission to examine these practices closely and to determine to what extent, since they are initially the responsibility of national States, European policy is likely to result in or encourage actions of this type on the part of Member States. For example, we discovered at the seminar that readmission agreements were actually an incitement to Member States to create such camps. In the final analysis, therefore, the question is whether, in the light of what I believe to be the satisfactory results of the Convention working party, we should encourage the Council to work this year, or whether we ought to wait until new decision-making methods make it possible to achieve greater equilibrium between the three aspects of the area that we have been talking about just now.

Political group: Verts-ALE
Mr President, I would firstly like to thank Mr Costa Neves for his cooperation, congratulate him on his report and tell him that the priorities in the field of external policy are perfectly clear: enlargement, which does not come within heading 4; the prevention of conflicts and crisis management; the reconstruction of the Balkans; the European Union’s Mediterranean policy; the Nordic dimension, of course, and cooperation and improvement in human rights fields. I would in particular like to stress that the Committee on External Affairs has asked – the Commissioner for External Affairs and I had the opportunity to talk about this with Mr Patten last week in Santiago de Chile – that the second Summit of Heads of State or Government of the European Union and Latin America and the new agreements which are being negotiated with Chile and Mercosur be considered as priorities. The Committee on External Affairs therefore insists on these priorities and, of course, all of this must be carried out with the most effective management and the greatest transparency. We hope that the cooperation with the rapporteur continues at first reading.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, I would like to remind the House that during the last part-session in Strasbourg, I spoke on two occasions about Members’ freedom of access to the House. We all know about the budgetary situation for the car pool. Some Members have found that when they are very short of time, they cannot get a car; they have to take a taxi and then downstairs, even though they say that they are Members, they cannot come upstairs, which takes up more time. This was why I was not present for the first roll-call vote today. I would urge the Bureau to address this issue of Members’ freedom of access to the House, regardless of whether the situation arises because of a demonstration or for other reasons. This is an important issue. I read the minutes of the Bureau’s meetings regularly. I read about colleagues who write letters whose content may or may not be important, but I have seen nothing to indicate that certain interventions, notably from Mr Posselt and myself, have been discussed by the Bureau or that we are being offered a reasonable and acceptable answer.

Political group: PPE-DE
Madam President, I should just like to take a few seconds to explain why we are asking for this postponement. This is a controversial report which adds the issue of GMOs to a subject which the Commission did not cover. What is more, the report is scheduled for discussion on Thursday evening with a vote on Friday morning. We were under the impression that votes on controversial reports were not to be held on Friday mornings.

Political group: Verts-ALE
I rise on a point of order. You will no doubt be aware of the serious problems concerning the provision of secondary education in my region of Northamptonshire. With me today in the public gallery is a mother of two from Earls Barton near Wellingborough whose eldest son is due to enter secondary education in September. He has recently petitioned this Parliament because his Local Education Authority has failed to allocate him a place in any of the schools of his choice in his local area, even after what can only be described as a flawed appeals process. This is the same Local Education Authority that, until last week, was failing to provide any education or school places to 20 children in the same area. Will the President please write to the British Government to clarify how this sits with the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, especially Article 14(3), the right to education, which I believe specifically covers Lucy Payne's case and the concerns of many other parents across Northamptonshire.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, by their deeds rather than their words shall you know them – I agree with Mrs Schroedter that the case of Grigory Pasko will increasingly become a test case for whether or not Russia is working towards the rule of law, and thus an important test case for relations between Russia and the EU. I often get the impression that our policy on Russia is a successful combination of deceit and self-deception, in which one is not quite sure where the deceit ends and self-deception begins. We saw this at the NATO summit in Rome. We see it in the OSCE. We see it in the Council of Europe here in Strasbourg, and we see it also in relations between Russia and the EU. There is constant talk about how Russia is well on the way to democracy, or even about how it is a functioning democracy. This has nothing to do with reality. We can see that in Chechnya, but we also see it very clearly in the fate of Mr Pasko, who has done the thing that the institutions I have mentioned are always talking about. He took a stand for freedom, democracy, health and public safety. He protested at the commission of a crime. He brought to light a crime that put people in danger and through which they would have been in even greater danger if the crime had not be brought to light, and, as Mrs Schroedter so rightly said, in doing that he did his duty. It is now high time for us, too, at last to do our duty and say clearly that we stand behind Grigory Pasko, journalist and defender of citizens' rights. He has done us all a service, and we must stand by him in this situation in which his health and freedom are in the gravest danger, not only for humanitarian reasons, but also for the sake of the credibility of the European Union, for whose ideals of freedom he too has taken a stand, and for the sake of relations between the European Community and Russia, for no real partnership with Russia can succeed if, far from the rule of law in that country being strengthened, Russia is suffering further setbacks on the road to it. There have been major setbacks in recent years, and we must fear that what is left of democracy and the rule of law in Russia will be endangered if victory goes to those who want to make use of the Pasko case in a struggle for power within Russia, by which they want to demonstrate that the armed forces and the secret services are still in charge. That is incompatible with European principles, and so our credibility is also at stake. (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, as someone who is at least a quarter Irish, I welcome Ireland’s presidency. Mr Barón Crespo is right: the British Conservatives do not mourn the demise of the European Union constitutional project and we give thanks for Spanish and Polish intransigence. As a document it was far too centralising and federalist in content for our taste, far too long and both prescriptive and inflexible. We say ‘RIP’. However, I hope that Ireland’s historic relations with the United States will serve to promote, if not a full, free trade EU-USA agreement – now that the WTO, post-Cancun, is fatally wounded – at least a common economic space for trade in goods and services, particularly financial services. Much more also needs to be done to implement the Lisbon agenda, as we see Germany now saddled by a deep recession. This is not helped by an overvalued euro and a one-size-fits-all monetary policy. With the Commission now taking it to court over the breaches of the stability and growth pact, Germany is effectively hoisted by its own petard. With enlargement, these six months will be great ones. I wish the Irish presidency all the luck for which its people are so famous.

Political group: PPE-DE
Madam President, my political group will be delighted to vote in favour of this own-initiative report by Mrs Ghilardotti. It is a very serviceable document that really is to be welcomed. It gives concrete shape to what many are talking about, that is to say gender mainstreaming, but which so few are attempting to convert into practical politics. I am glad to hear that the Commission has the same problems as the Committee on Women’s Rights and Equal Opportunities. Ever since the Beijing Conference in 1995, we have talked about statistics broken down by gender. Statistics of this kind have still not been produced in our Member States, and nor of course have they been produced by the Commission. We have also assessed in previous debates how the structural funds are distributed by gender. I am not usually particularly enamoured of the Commission’s various propaganda documents, but I really do hope in this case that an attempt will at least be made to produce a document on this issue that can be distributed in the Member States. It is regrettable that the Committee on Budgets has not itself taken the initiative that Mrs Ghilardotti has so creditably taken. All the institutions have undertaken to take account of gender mainstreaming in all areas. Now that, hopefully, many from the Committee on Budgets are present, I really do hope that this initiative will be taken to heart and practical measures continue to be taken.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it is surprising, considering what is happening today in Belgium, to hear so much criticism of the Commission proposal. Indeed, in my view, it is a great credit to the European Union and this House. We must bear in mind that, in the year 2000, 389 000 people made asylum applications, spread throughout the 15 Member States. Perhaps we should show a degree of humanity and realise that, behind all the speeches that we make in this Chamber, there are men, women and children who are fleeing persecution and conflicts or who are seeking to escape from a life of poverty and deprivation. Have we already forgotten that it is as a result of what we have experienced here in Europe in times of war that we have built up what now constitutes and justifies our presence in this House? In our States in crisis, since the events of 11 September, those seeking asylum and international protection have been perceived by many as a threat to law and order, to social stability and even, in some cases, to national security. It is our duty, because we have a duty to remember, because it is the very justification for our existence, because we are essentially a democratic body which defends human rights, to give everyone a chance and to stop the European Union becoming a ‘Fortress Europe’ which is closed to the rest of the world. Following on from other reports already adopted by Parliament, I believe that the proposal before us today makes it possible to establish something that is a real credit to us, in other words an area of freedom, security and justice. Furthermore, in order to introduce some coherence between the regulations and laws of the Member States and to define a platform for common standards, we are establishing, through this proposal for a directive, minimum standards on the definition and scope of the status of refugee. Let this be clear: the minimum standards are not aligned with the lowest common denominator, they do not make it possible to do a U-turn and to seal up Europe, the very place where the Geneva Convention was conceived – it is necessary to point this out again? The main victims of violence, trafficking and mutilation are women and girls. It is necessary, in particular, to ensure that they benefit from assistance, protection and services, and, at the same time, to make these women, who are at the greatest risk from discrimination in their countries of origin, less easy prey for traffickers of human beings or pimps, who deceive them with the offer of trips or visits to our countries. That is why this proposal for a directive, which seeks, furthermore, to protect these women and children, must enable them to exercise their rights, must enable them to make an asylum application, must enable them to expose the specific forms of persecution that they have endured, because these are, first and foremost, attacks on respect for fundamental rights. It is this, discussions on directives such as this, which justify our continued presence in this Chamber. (Applause)

Political group: PSE
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, in the last few days, various parts of Portugal, especially in the north and the centre of the country, have suffered from terrible weather conditions, with torrential rain that has led to the loss of human life, the destruction of homes, families being displaced, damage to buildings, enormous harm to farming, fisheries, industry and trade, the destruction of communication lines and the closure of harbours and ports. Not all of the damage has, of course, been fully assessed yet, but the total cost may reach billions of escudos. This will require the mobilisation of Community special assistance grants in order to deal with the economic and social problems caused by this devastation. Therefore, in addition to sending our heartfelt condolences to the families of the victims and expressing our sympathy for the people who have lost their homes and their possessions, in which, I am sure, all Members of this Parliament join, we ask you, Madam President to make representations to the Commission, urging it to provide, in conjunction with the Portuguese Government and the local authorities, emergency aid for the most badly affected communities so that economic activity may be restored. I would also ask the Conference of Presidents to include this matter in the topical and urgent debate in Parliament’s next part-session.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, the upside of the fact that we are so late debating the old progress reports is that we can inject some up-to-date input just before the new reports are finalised. I have observed developments in Lithuania with interest, and not only since I became the shadow rapporteur for this country. It demonstrates the classic problems of a candidate country, problems which apply across the board and do not therefore need to be restated. One specific aspect, and this also costs the EU a great deal of money, is Lithuanian energy policy. The sector as a whole has already cost three heads of government their job. First on the subject of Ignalina, which Mr Souladakis has already addressed. I think that it is up to us to ensure, when the closure process is implemented, that locals are kept properly informed at all times of what it is actually planned to do and what their prospects are in this relatively isolated area. My personal impression is that this is not yet the case. As a result, some Lithuanian politicians, admittedly without portfolio, are irresponsibly raising people's hopes in order to curry votes. This triggers anti-European sentiments because the debate is over-simplified. Privatisation of the oil and gas sectors is also causing a degree of ill feeling among the people because western investors have acted as if this is a banana republic. Now, no one even bothers to distinguish between EU nationals and Americans. People have become sceptical of western capital and more receptive to so-called national solutions. However, allegedly national solutions in Lithuania are in fact generally a front for Russian money. I just want to make sure that everyone involved both inside and outside Lithuania is aware of this and bears it in mind when making political and economic decisions.

Political group: PPE-DE