GwendalTsang/DEFT09-parquet huggingface dataset:
Mr President, I actually believe that, faced with the recession in the aviation industry and in air transport, we need some strong decisions in order to restore confidence and open up real prospects. I personally am not satisfied with the Commission’s response, which favours the speeding up of restructuring in the air transport sector. I am in favour of a European approach. We can discuss and comment on the content of that approach later. As for restoring confidence, I believe that confidence is actually a product of safety, and the safety dimension in this sector, as in others, is dependent upon the expertise, competence and qualifications of the staff employed. Commissioner, I am absolutely in agreement with you on the urgent need to develop the social dialogue, but we cannot just be content with a social dialogue at a time when people are facing the problem of redundancies. Is anyone really listening to the employees concerned? They too have comments, and thoughts, and proposals, and in view of what we have just decided regarding the consultation of workers, perhaps that could be implemented much more rapidly. I also believe that restoring confidence involves learning lessons from the present crisis and putting a stop to the process of liberalisation that is currently underway. Frankly, I do not believe that the liberalisation that has developed in this sector has contributed towards its development. In fact I would rather say that it has contributed towards its difficulties. Restoring confidence also means, at any given moment, taking responsibility for providing assistance. I believe that the limited targeted measures are insufficient to cope with this crisis. Since the American aid is considerable, I believe that there should be compensatory aid in the air transport sector, but that it should also be made conditional upon maintaining jobs. Finally, I believe that we also need to open up prospects. It seems to me that among our long-term prospects we should be looking at how the European Union can work, not towards concentrations, but towards the development of international cooperation, on safety and the management of air traffic, between the airlines and the public authorities. Mr President, I believe that we should also increase cooperation between air and rail transport, and that airports should be integrated into the trans-European networks.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, I rise in response to the outrageous comments just made by Mr Gollnisch, who implied that David Kelly, and I quote: 'died in suspect circumstances', and that Tony Blair lied. The recent judicial inquiry has looked at all the facts surrounding these tragic circumstances and concluded quite clearly that there were no suspect circumstances surrounding the death of Mr Kelly, as he implied, and that Mr Blair did not lie to the House of Commons on this matter. Whatever one's view of the Iraqi conflict – and there are different views in this House, in my country, and indeed in my party, and I have my own view on this – it is essential that we debate this matter based on the facts, not on fiction. (Interjection from Mr Gollnisch: 'No weapons of mass destruction is a fact!')

Political group: PSE
Mr President, I too should like to thank Mr Rocard for his own-initiative report, even if I did not agree with his original view which was, of course, to establish supplementary health insurance schemes in all EU countries, founded on the principle of solidarity and governed by a common set of regulations. I can, however, support the Commission’s publishing a Green Paper explaining the ins and outs of such sickness insurance, focusing in particular upon sickness insurance in relation to cross-border activities and, in the process, looking into whether there is a need for further initiatives. Sickness insurance is, of course, a national responsibility and systems differ from one another. It is true, however, that the growing number of elderly people and the growing demands upon the health sector mean that the systems are coming under financial pressure. It is a problem calling for many different solutions, including better organised and more efficient health care, so that a better quality of service can be obtained for the same money. Moreover, new medical methods can also, in fact, lead to both better and cheaper forms of treatment. I am generally in favour of a system in which the money follows the patient as far as possible, so that it is the patient and not the system that is central. In this perspective, there is certainly justification for insurance-style sickness schemes and supplementary insurance schemes. However, the individual country must decide for itself what arrangements it prefers. It would be wrong if the EU were to devise rules concerning, for example, data relating to health, or requiring everyone to be insured and, in that way, destroy the multiplicity of supplementary health insurance schemes which exist today in many countries and operate on actuarial principles. It is right that, in connection with serious illnesses such as cancer and aids, there must be a compulsory system, founded on the principle of solidarity, which ensures good treatment for everybody. Supplementary health insurance must be just that: supplementary, for example, for those who are willing to pay for an extra service, or designed to cover the costs of more ordinary and frequently occurring illnesses for which actuarial calculations can reasonably be made.

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, what we ought to talk about today is how we are to guarantee European security and how we are to secure a secure future for us all. What we have seen, particularly in recent years and on 11 September, is that security is not brought about through building up armaments. It might be said, rather, that the opposite is the case for, if there is any country on this planet that has been well equipped militarily, it is the United States which, specifically, became the victim of a terrorist action on 11 September. The military hardware it had built up did nothing to prevent that terrorist action. The swing to the right throughout the United States in this area must not, for heaven’s sake, end up infecting thinking on European security policy. There is a complete lack of proportion, both globally and in the EU, between the investments made in military hardware and our investments in genuinely sustainable security. The problem is that Mr Morillon’s report does not seek to alter this disproportion, and that is one of the reasons why I do not want ultimately to support it, in spite of the fact that many of the ongoing analyses concerning the need for a European identity in these areas are constructive and sound. If, however, that identity is to consist in our copying something that has already proved to be useless and powerless, then we shall have taken a wrong turning. That is not an expression of pacifism, for I believe that a people must be entitled to defend their own rights, and I also believe there may be situations in which military power must be used in order to preserve the peace. The threat we are facing does not, however, come from something we can fight using military hardware. It comes first and foremost from the desperation of people in a very unjust world, and that should instead be the focus for our priorities. IN THE CHAIR: MRS LALUMIÈREVice-President

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, I congratulate Mr Ferber on his report. These types of reports are never easy and he has done a good job. My only criticism is that Amendments Nos 4 and 5 should have been tabled in someone else's name for the Group. By saying that I am being consistent: I said the same to Mrs Müller in the Green Group when she did that. I shall explain why shortly. Parliament demands that the Commission and the other institutions are prudent with taxpayers' money, and we think the same should apply to the European Parliament. As chairman of this committee, I have discovered that your loyalties are spread very wide. I have a loyalty to the committee, and when the committee takes a decision I feel duty-bound to defend that decision. I have a loyalty to the rapporteur, and that is why I have made the comments before because the rapporteur should reflect the opinions of the committee. I also have a loyalty to my political group which has given me this speaking time. This sometimes leaves me bereft of my own loyalties to myself and what I want to say. I was somewhat sympathetic to what Mr Dell'Alba was saying because we have to be careful of criticising everybody else if, at the same time, we are giving the impression that we are ignoring that prudency and just doing what we want to do. I am not saying that we have done that. However, if that is the impression we are going to give, we have to be very careful and realise the consequences. Having said that, the Ferber report has tried to balance the needs of Parliament coming into a new millennium – new needs, enlargement on the horizon – and to make it function effectively. Not all the decisions will be taken when we vote this report through. The first reading will be time when the final decisions are taken, and cognisance has been taken of that. When they see a budget of EUR 965m, the newspapers will easily deduce that is over EUR 1.5m per Member. The British newspapers will be full of GBP 1m per MEP – that is what they cost! However, we are trying to reduce those costs, especially on buildings. If people would look at what is being done with the buildings: we are trying to reduce the payments over the shortest possible time, thereby reducing the total burden on Parliament's budget. One only has to look at paragraphs 15 to 18 to see how serious we are about the buildings policy. The policy of ramassage has been a great success for this Parliament. What we have done with the Belliard building may not be ideal but at least it is a step in the right direction, and it is now off our backs. Finally, one of the great problems in our institution is that we have no statute for Members, assistants or political parties. What is being proposed is to try to make some headway towards resolving those factors.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, I would also like to lend my support to those who have signalled their congratulations to Eryl McNally for doing an excellent job in piloting this through Parliament and of course in conducting negotiations on our behalf with the other institutions. The rapporteur has already covered the main issues of substance, with all of which my group and I entirely agree. I only wish to make two additional wider points at this stage. Firstly, Intelligent Europe is not and should not be the title for this programme but, as the rapporteur herself suggested, should of course be the umbrella title for everything we do in the energy policy environment. As many colleagues know, we are facing a glut of legislation in the energy field today, this week and next week, ranging from combined heat and power through to trans-European networks and to the all-important electricity and gas liberalisation package. Collectively we hope all of those measures together represent a real, intelligent policy. If you will forgive me for using this ghastly phrase, they represent a 'joined-up policy, joined-up government'. To that end the Commissioner's declaration today is very important and much to be welcomed. The second point is about the budget. We warmly support the rapporteur's success in raising the overall budget, but it is worth noting that the EUR 200m, which is of course a great deal of money to you and me, is actually extremely little when compared to the enormous range of tasks which the Intelligent Energy programme is supposed to tackle. EUR 200m could easily be absorbed in any one of the four titles and for that reason alone – and of course this is something we have seen in other areas as well, the trans-European networks for instance – the seed money being put forward by the European Union is massively dwarfed by the tasks to be performed. For that reason, we really do hope that procedures will be as efficient as possible, will avoid duplication, will avoid unnecessary administrative and bureaucratic checks and will give the taxpayers the right bang for their bucks.

Political group: ELDR
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I too would like to begin by congratulating Mr Paasilinna. I believe we have achieved a good compromise. In the many speeches that we have already heard, it has been described as a compromise, but as one that will indeed bring us, in the coming year, a European agency to deal with security issues throughout the Internet and its infrastructure. I believe that it was on this basis that we then all decided to simply try and reach a compromise that would take us through the first five years, although we were always aware that, after those five years, we would make a real attempt at creating genuine European structures and doing away with the problems that will now be inherent in the Agency. These have to do with voting rights, but also with the issue raised by the Member States, which will now, in fact, be represented by one person each. I nonetheless believe that, faced with the challenges in this area, each and every one of us will really try to determine what this agency’s tasks are. I have confidence in the promises made by the Italian presidency of the Council, and I think it will remember them even after five years. I hope that we will then all work towards making an early start on the audit that we have planned for – as early as after three years, if my memory serves me correctly – so that we can then make a start on rethinking the structures and defining the tasks more precisely. It is with reference to that, Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, that I would like to put a question to you. Will you actually be coming back to the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy to discuss these tasks with its members as soon as you know how they are to be catalogued in collaboration with the Member States? The fact is that I suspect that this is not just about issues of security in the infrastructures – Members have already mentioned data security – but also about many other aspects that are equally affected, and initiating another wide-ranging discussion of these issues could be very interesting.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, after the Single European Act, after Maastricht, after the Treaty of Amsterdam, this Parliament had to judge the results. In all those cases we reached the conclusion that those treaties were not entirely satisfactory, did not respond to all of our aspirations, but nonetheless represented a step forward and were at least better than the status quo. We recommended that they be ratified. This time we have a treaty which, at least on one point, represents a step backwards and is arguably worse than the status quo: that is, the new system for qualified majority voting in the Council, which makes reaching a decision even more difficult than it is at present. It introduces a triple threshold: number of states, population, and the percentage of the votes set at a higher level than is the case at the moment. At the moment it is 71% of the votes. That is already very high. It was set high to make sure that under any permutation such a qualified majority represented a majority of the population. Now that we have a population criterion in there anyway, it should have been possible to lower the threshold in terms of the number of votes. Instead it seems that it has been raised, although I speak while waiting to see the final text: apparently there was an adjustment in the last hour of the IGC on that. I will evaluate that outcome when I see the text. Nonetheless that is a very worrying situation. For the rest the Treaty is a mixture of unsatisfactory and positive things – unsatisfactory but nonetheless better than the status quo, I suppose, at least as regards the extension of qualified majority voting, the extension of the codecision procedure for the European Parliament, and the provisions for enhanced cooperation. That is all better than we have now, even if not all of our requests and desires have been met. Finally, there are a few positive things: the new version of Article 7 of the Treaty; the article on political parties and their statute; the right of this Parliament to take the other institutions to the Court of Justice – that is also an important factor of political control; the new formula for the European Commission, putting the so-called 'lex Prodi' into the Treaty, strengthening the President and the new composition of the Commission – a reasonable compromise which I accept and will work over time; and, as my colleague, Mr Tsatsos pointed out, the way forward to the future. This is not the end of the story. New reforms will come and we must take advantage of that. To sum up, we have a mixture of the good, the bad and the ugly. We will now evaluate this in detail. I believe we will recommend ratification and moving forward to a new reform, but we must look at the small print to decide whether that is the right way forward.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, October 2000 to October 2003 represents 1 000 days of violence, 1 000 days of the innocent dying, 1 000 days of suffering by both communities, 1 000 days of the Intifada and 1 000 days of Europe’s powerlessness. One day the history of this missed opportunity, this wasted time will be written about, and those who thought that violence was a justifiable political weapon will be judged very harshly. A few days ago, we experienced an exceptionally powerful moment in Parliament, a moment of genuine enlightenment, when we received the Palestinian, Mr Nusseibeh and the Israeli, Mr Yalon. They represent hope, because hope emanates from the communities themselves. Europe could be built because in 1946 a Franco-German commission decided to withdraw anti-German phrases from French schoolbooks and anti-French phrases from German schoolbooks. From that time on, we have not called the Germans ‘Boches’; we have given them different names and looked at them through different eyes. This is the message that we must send to the region. There are people in both communities who think in terms of dialogue, reconciliation, the future and development. These are the people who warrant our support. Those who truly deserve to win the Nobel prize are the Palestinian intellectuals who take the risk, as Camus once did, of condemning terrorism as an absolute evil and a crime against humanity. I cannot allow it to be said, as it was a few minutes ago, that the actions of Hamas have anything in common with the French resistance movement. The real heroes are also the ordinary Israelis, the bus drivers that no human shield has ever thought about accompanying. Europe must think about the communities and about the future. We must stop acting as prosecutors, since we are not really qualified to sit in judgment. We must play the role of a realistic and courageous guide.

Political group: PSE
Mr President, on a point of order. Many friends and women who are colleagues in this Parliament have just pointed out that my name appears as one of those who signed against women's rights. I want to put on record that I am not against women's rights. I have always supported women's rights. It must be an error. Sometimes colleagues bring petitions from delegations and we sign them. I am sorry about that.

Political group: PPE-DE
Mr President, I would in fact like to put an oral amendment, or, as it might better be termed, a supplementary motion, namely that something should be inserted as Q a (new). As printed in the joint text, Q has to do with the repression of Christian groupings and of Buddhist monks, but it is worthy of note that Islamic teachers have also suffered repression. My group takes the view that, if we are to mention certain individual groups, we should also refer to all of those who suffer, or have suffered, repression. That is why we want to add to it. The Group of the European People’s Party has indicated to me its willingness to accept this, and I believe that the other groups are able to do likewise. I will now quote the oral amendment, of which you have the English version. It is as follows: Qa. ... ’Drawing attention, furthermore, to the expulsion of at least 28 foreign Islamic teachers from Cambodia’

Political group: PSE
Mr President, wanting to achieve relations on the basis of partnership between the old continent and Africa means first of all putting a halt to the present system which operates to benefit the great powers and the corrupt elite of the south. The continent of Africa is ravaged by epidemics such as the AIDS epidemic and by wars that are conspicuous, or sometimes forgotten. Antipersonnel mines continue to kill innocent people, arms of all kinds proliferate and fall into the hands of child-soldiers. The number of undernourished people in black Africa rose from 90 million in 1970 to 180 million in 1995. The figures speak for themselves. Time seems to have stood still between the Biafra famine thirty years ago and the one which is once again devastating Ethiopia. Illiteracy and unemployment affect the vast majority of young people on the African continent. So it would be a mistake to think, today, that three quarters of the planet, three quarters of the human race, are going to carry on living in this sort of poverty without causing some serious instability at world level. We must also do away with aid policies, which are equivalent to giving fish to people living on the bank of the river, as the saying goes, instead of helping them to make fishing rods. The result is there is never enough fish and there are increasing numbers of people fighting over the leftovers. Moreover, the IMF ordered ultraliberal policies, supposedly for structural adjustment. These are policies that have never worked anywhere. Quite the opposite. I do not know of a single example of a country which made any progress by applying their directives. In all its negotiations, the European Union should also demand fighting against corruption, certainly, and for democracy but, in return, African countries can also demand that the friends of Le Pen, Haider and Martinez should stop making regular racist attacks on their populations resident in Europe. We agree that we cannot carry on supporting dictators in the name of Realpolitik. We must support democrats unreservedly. From this point of view, what has taken place in Senegal sends out a strong message, proving that Africa is not automatically condemned to conflict, coups d’état or tribal warfare. There is an imperative need for a new policy, based on codevelopment, conflict prevention, and the rejection of the dictates of the financial markets. Obviously, this necessitates cancelling the 350 billion dollars of debt which is strangling any development in these States. Finally, Mr President, Europe too made its wealth from colonialism and slavery. Europe thus has a moral debt towards Africa. Part of our wealth came from the colonial plundering inflicted on Africa. Acknowledging that slavery was a crime against humanity would be an important gesture.

Political group: GUE-NGL
Mr President, Commissioner, I thought your Communication was interesting and I would like to ask you two questions. This initiative for partnership between the Commission and United Nations bodies is important, in my opinion, as long as it is not detrimental to European development and humanitarian aid policies, the design and implementation of which are subject to the democratic control of this House. I would therefore urge you that it should not be limited to giving or supplying funds or delegating responsibilities to a bigger partner, but that this responsibility should also be monitored. My second question refers to the identity of Community aid, which is one of our fundamental pillars and which is focused on the non-governmental sector. I would like this aid to continue, and in this respect I am concerned about the relationship that NGOs often have with United Nations bodies. How will this continue to be organised or coordinated?

Political group: PSE