ddrg/super_eurlex huggingface dataset:
29.

Calls on the Commission to commission regular and adequately financed studies that analyse the importance of ownership for the success and survival of a business and highlight the specific challenges facing family businesses, and to propose to the European Parliament and the Member States a statistically workable Europe-wide definition of ‘family business’ — developed together with Eurostat –, taking into account the different circumstances in the Member States; calls on the Commission, furthermore, to use the existing ‘task force small and medium-sized enterprise data’ to collect enough data, including on family businesses in all the Member States, to allow a comparison of the situation and needs of family businesses of different sizes, as well as a comparison of family businesses and non-family businesses, to promote information and exchanges of examples of know-how and good practice throughout the EU, for example by establishing a family business contact point at the Commission and by making the best use of programmes such as "Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs, and to allow for more targeted assistance;
25.

Acknowledges the necessity for authors and performers to be provided with legal protection for their creative and artistic work; recognises that the dissemination of culture and knowledge is in the public interest; recognises the role of producers and publishers in bringing works to the market, and the need for fair and appropriate remuneration for all categories of rightholders; calls for improvements to the contractual position of authors and performers in relation to other rightholders and intermediaries, notably by considering a reasonable period for the use of rights transferred by authors to third parties, after which those rights would lapse, as contractual exchanges may be marked by an imbalance of power; stresses in this connection the importance of contractual freedom;
85.

Considers that water should be at the heart of the work in preparation of two major international events in 2015, namely the post-2015 agenda summit and COP21 on climate change; strongly supports, in this context, the inclusion of ambitious and far-reaching targets for water and sanitation, such as Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6 on ensuring availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all by 2030, to be adopted in September 2015; reiterates that ending poverty through the post-2015 process is only possible if we ensure that everyone, everywhere has access to clean water, basic sanitation and hygiene; stresses that realisation of all SDGs requires mobilisation of much more financing for development than is currently provided, from both developed and developing countries; calls for the creation of a global monitoring mechanism to track progress in achieving universal access to safe drinking water, the sustainable use and development of water resources and the strengthening of equitable, participatory and accountable water governance in all countries; urges the Commission to ensure that aid is spent effectively and that it is better targeted to the WASH sector in the perspective of the post-2015 development agenda;
22.

Stresses that an effective EU development and human rights policy will require the mainstreaming of ICTs, and the bridging of the digital divide, by providing basic technological infrastructure, by facilitating access to knowledge and information to promote digital skills, and by promoting the use of open standards in documents and the use of free and open-source software, where appropriate, to ensure openness and transparency (especially by public institutions) — including the safeguarding of data protection in the digital realm all over the world — as well as a better understanding of the potential risks and benefits of ICTs;
7.

Welcomes the fact that the European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF) and the Instrument for Pre-accession Assistance for 2014-2020, and in particular the Adriatic Ionian Cooperation Programme 2014-2020 (ADRION), provide significant potential resources and a wide range of tools and technical options for the strategy; supports the fact that other funds and instruments relevant to the strategy pillars are available, in particular the Horizon 2020 and Erasmus Plus programmes in respect of all pillars, the Connecting Europe Facility in respect of Pillar II, the LIFE programme in respect of Pillar III, as well as in respect of climate change mitigation and adaptation, and the COSME and Creative Europe programmes for SMEs in respect of Pillar IV, as well as the INNOVFIN programme for innovation funding; encourages cooperation, in order to create a synergy of available funds, between the monitoring committees of the territorial cooperation programmes which cover the region, the EUSAIR governing board and the ESIF managing authorities; stresses that the strategy should enable a more efficient and effective use of existing instruments and funds;
19.

Points out that access to justice in this field is limited due to several causes, such as the length or costs of the procedures, the challenges faced by equality bodies in some Member States, the lack of wage transparency, the absence of free legal aid, the fear of stigmatisation or suffering reprisals should victims speak out about discrimination in the workplace; underlines the fact that the application of the burden of proof rule also poses problems in several Member States, thus making the defence of women workers difficult since they often have no access or only limited access to the relevant information and, moreover, fear losing their job; calls on the Member States and regional and local authorities to take an active role in providing assistance to victims of discrimination, either directly or through support for equality bodies, trade unions, community organisations and NGOs working in this field; points out that a relevant solution for improving access to justice in this field would be to give independent equality bodies the power to provide assistance to victims of discrimination, including free legal aid, as well as the right to represent individuals in cases of pay discrimination; suggests in this regard that confidential reporting systems be introduced in the Member States to enable women to report possible instances of inequality of treatment in the workplace;
8.

Expresses its concern about the effective implementation and enforcement of current EU legislation relating to the welfare of animals, given the complexity and large number of relevant legislative acts; stresses that improving the enforcement of, and compliance with, existing legislation should be the key goal of all animal health and welfare rules;
5.

Urges the Commission to launch negotiations on an interinstitutional agreement (IIA) on European economic governance, including the European Semester and the scrutiny of the implementation of the macroeconomic adjustment programme, with Parliament, the Council and the Eurogroup, as provided for in the Five Presidents’ Report; insists that this IIA should ensure, within the framework of the Treaties, that the structure of the European Semester allows for meaningful and regular parliamentary scrutiny of the process, in particular as regards euro area recommendations;
50.

Welcomes the ongoing initiative of the Commission to modernise EU dual-use export controls and its intention to present a new legislative proposal in the first half of 2016 for smart and effective policies to regulate commercial exports of services related to the implementation and use of dual-use technologies, while including effective safeguards in order to prevent such export controls harming scientific and IT security research; underlines that the proposal should also aim to improve coherence and transparency of the export control regime and fully take into account the changing nature of security challenges and the speed of technological development, especially with regard to surveillance and intrusion software equipment; welcomes the agreement reached on 4 December 2013 by the participating states in the Wassenaar Arrangement to adopt controls in the areas of surveillance, law enforcement and intelligence- gathering tools and network surveillance systems; recalls the urgent need to address potentially harmful exports of ICT products and services that can be used in connection with human rights violations in certain third countries, as agreed in the Joint Statement of the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission of April 2014;
—

having regard to its previous resolutions of 27 February 2014 on the situation in Iraq (1), of 18 September 2014 on the situation in Iraq and Syria, and the IS offensive, including the persecution of minorities (2), in particular paragraph 4 thereof, of 27 November 2014 on Iraq: kidnapping and mistreatment of women (3), of 12 February 2015 on the humanitarian crisis in Iraq and Syria, in particular in the IS context (4), and specifically paragraph 27 thereof, of 12 March 2015 on recent attacks and abductions by ISIS/Daesh in the Middle East, notably of Assyrians (5), in particular paragraph 2 thereof, of 12 March 2015 on the Annual Report on Human Rights and Democracy in the World 2013 and the European Union’s policy on the matter (6), in particular paragraphs 129 and 211 thereof, of 12 March 2015 on the EU’s priorities for the UN Human Rights Council in 2015 (7), in particular paragraphs 66 and 67 thereof, of 30 April 2015 on the persecution of Christians around the world, in relation to the killing of students in Kenya by terror group Al-Shabaab (8), in particular paragraph 10 thereof, and of 30 April 2015 on the destruction of cultural sites perpetrated by ISIS/Daesh (9),
12.

Believes that consumer protection does not necessarily entail large volumes of information and that the focus should rather be on the quality and comprehensibility of information enabling proper decision-making — information must be relevant, accurate, comparable, user-friendly, reliable and timely; is concerned that the multiplicity and complexity of customer information might not ultimately serve real customer needs; argues for a balance to be struck to provide consumers with the information they need to make informed choices, and to understand the risks involved, while not unnecessarily burdening businesses, especially SMEs; encourages further digitalisation of information; stresses that financial advisers and employees providing consumer advice at financial institutions should be given the training and time necessary to be able to serve customers in an accurate way; notes the importance of effective supervisory powers to intervene in the marketing of products where necessary; points to the need for a European initiative for more and better financial education by no later than the end of 2016, taking account of the specific needs of each Member State, also to ensure full awareness of the advantages and disadvantages of capital market investments; underlines also that financial education should be targeted towards SMEs, teaching them how to use capital markets; believes in the benefit of better transparency in order to enable companies, investors and consumers to understand the comparative costs and benefits of different services provided by market participants, but also notes that more transparency has to come with added value for customers or competent supervisors and be targeted towards the practical use of the information and data;
27.

Welcomes Serbia’s continued engagement in the normalisation process with Kosovo, and the finalisation of key agreements on 25 August 2015, namely on the establishment of the Association/Community of Serb majority municipalities in Kosovo, on energy, on telecoms and on the Mitrovica Bridge; urges Serbia to swiftly implement its part of these agreements and to engage constructively with Kosovo in formulating and implementing future agreements; notes that progress has been made in areas such as police and civil protection, vehicle insurance, customs, liaison arrangements and cadastral records; reiterates that progress in the Dialogue should be measured by its implementation on the ground; calls on Serbia and Kosovo to refrain from negative rhetoric and to move forward with the full implementation, in good faith and in a timely manner, of all the agreements already reached, and to determinedly continue the normalisation process; calls for continuous efforts by both governments and the EU institutions to communicate and explain the provisions of the reached agreements, in order to bring ethnic Albanian and Serbian communities in Kosovo closer together; commends the efforts of the business community, led by Chambers of Commerce, to contribute to the normalisation of relations, by engaging in dialogue between Chambers of Commerce of Serbia and Kosovo, to tackle barriers to doing business between the two sides, and to facilitate contact and cooperation between companies; calls on the Commission to support maintaining and developing these activities in the future; encourages Serbia and Kosovo to identify new areas of discussion for the dialogue with the aim of improving people’s lives and comprehensively normalising relations; calls on the European External Action Service (EEAS) to conduct an evaluation of the performance of the two sides in fulfilling their obligations; urges Serbia to act in a spirit of good-neighbourly relations and expresses the hope that the issue of Kosovo’s failed application for UNESCO membership will not hamper the dialogue, and the further integration of Kosovo in regional and international organisations, and that cooperation and efforts will continue for the protection of cultural heritage; urges Belgrade and Pristina to maintain good-neighbourly relations; welcomes the resumption of talks between Serbian Prime Minister Vučić and Kosovan Prime Minister Mustafa on 27 January 2016; notes that the topics discussed included mutual recognition of university and professional diplomas and improvement of road and rail connections; underlines that progress on the ground will be of benefit to the whole region;
43.

Considers that services such as Your Europe, Your Europe Advice, the European Employment Service, the CPC network, the points of single contact, SOLVIT, SOLVIT Plus, ADR and ODR are useful, low-cost alternatives to legal action; notes that only 4 % of consumers and companies are aware of such tools and that the level of take-up of these services is very low at present; calls on the Commission and the Member States, with a view to resolving this problem, to foster further awareness of such tools, while examining whether the outcomes and responses they generate are adequate for users; calls on the Commission, furthermore, to work on better cooperation between the various assistance services, such as Your Europe and SOLVIT, with the aim of increasing user satisfaction;
35.

Underlines the important role played by the SSM during the Greek crisis in monitoring the condition of the country’s banking sector, in conducting a comprehensive assessment of the significant Greek institutions and in contributing to the determination of the recapitalisation needs; notes that the recapitalisation needs of Greek banks as assessed by the SSM range from EUR 4,4 billion in a baseline scenario to EUR 14,4 billion in the most risky scenario, while the buffer envisaged under the Programme was as high as EUR 25 billion; asks for clarification with regard to the role of financial consultancies, which were often hired without a public tender and played a role in all the euro area bailouts by providing expertise to the troika of international lenders; calls for more transparency and accountability in the hiring process in order to avoid potential conflicts of interest arising from links to investment funds and other financial service providers; asks the ECB to redefine its role with regard to assistance programmes as one of ‘silent observer’; stresses that emergency liquidity assistance (ELA) is an essential instrument for safeguarding the stability of the financial system by preventing liquidity crises from turning into solvency crises; notes that the responsibility for its provision has not yet been fully transferred to the euro area level; welcomes the remarks made by President Draghi to Parliament’s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs hinting at a diligent revision of the ELA regime in the light of the ‘Europeanisation’ of bank supervision;
29.

Calls on the Member States to put in place and improve, in collaboration with social partners, information channels on the rights of domestic workers and carers and to ensure the highest information accessibility for all workers; recommends, to that end, to establish information points, following best practice in Member States, at regional and local level, helplines and websites providing assistance, information also in the form of campaigns on the rights of domestic workers and carers in each Member State in the national language and other appropriate languages; emphasises that civil society organisations such as organisations working on behalf of women and migrants should also be able to provide this information; points out that these tools must also be developed in a way that allows best practice, relevant advice and guidance to be given to possible employers, including families and agencies and that model employment contracts should be offered in order to ensure that employers carry out their responsibilities;
45.

Calls on the Commission to use a selective approach when developing legislative proposals on the use of fishing gears and techniques so as to take into account the actual impact that these gears and techniques have on non-industrial fishing resources in each of the relevant areas; calls on the Commission to ensure that any legislative initiatives are subject to a thorough prior impact assessment taking account of the specific factors that apply in each fishing area; feels that a non-selective approach to the use of fishing gears and techniques is having a serious impact on the viability of already marginalised coastal and island communities, causing further depopulation and hindering development and innovation; feels that positive discrimination should be applied to artisanal coastal fishing; believes that this approach, as with the case of the proposal to ban driftnets, suggests that the Commission is still adjusting to the decentralised reformed CFP which the co-legislators chose to adopt; reminds the Commission of its duty to operate within the framework of regionalisation as set out in the new CFP Regulation;
2.

Calls on the Member States to strengthen national controls, including on non-processed fish for restaurants and the catering sector, in an effort to tackle fraud and identify the stage in the supply chain where fish is mislabelled; is concerned by the substitution of high-quality species with lower-quality counterparts; calls on the Commission and the Member States to study what measures could be put in place to improve the traceability of fishery and aquaculture products; supports the creation of a working group to harmonise the implementation of traceability in all Member States and the setting-up of an external structure enabling the certification of voluntary claims for fishery and aquaculture products on the EU market;
88.

Emphasises the need to ensure consistent proportionality assessment of regulatory requirements and restrictions applicable to services; notes the Commission proposal to introduce a services passport to facilitate, in key economic sectors such as business services, the development and mobility of companies across the single market; considers that this initiative should be aimed at simplifying administrative procedures for service providers wanting to operate cross-border and authorities, and at addressing obstacles of a regulatory nature that discourage these companies from entering a market in another Member State; calls for the possible services passport to takes its place among the series of horizontal tools aimed at supporting internal market legislation, such as the Internal Market Information System (IMI) or the Points of Single Contact, which have been provided for by the Services Directive as a single administrative interface for dealing with all the necessary administrative procedures surrounding cross-border services activities; stresses that the introduction of a service passport must not lead to a situation in which the case-law developed by the ECJ on overriding reasons of public interest which can legitimise rules restricting the cross-border movement of services is weakened or repealed; underlines, however, that a services passport could be superfluous if the Services Directive were properly implemented and enforced; stresses that this must not be accompanied by the introduction of the country-of-origin principle;
11.

Notes that the effects of an accounting standard must be fully understood; insists that it should be a priority for the IASB and EFRAG to strengthen their impact analyses, notably in the field of macroeconomics, and to assess the different needs of the wide variety of stakeholders, including long-term investors and companies, as well as the general public; calls on the Commission to remind EFRAG to strengthen its capacity to assess the impact of new accounting standards on financial stability, with an explicit focus on European needs that should be introduced into the IASB’s standardisation earlier on in the process; notes, in particular, the absence of a quantitative impact assessment for IFRS 9, for which no data will be available before 2017; calls on the Commission to make sure that IFRS 9 serves the EU long-term investment strategy, especially by restricting provisions which could introduce excessive short-term volatility in financial statements; notes that the European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs) — ESMA, EBA and EIOPA — which have the expertise and capacity to assist in this task rejected full membership of the EFRAG Board because of EFRAG being a private body; considers that the ECB and ESAs, as observers of the EFRAG Board following the reformed governance arrangements, would contribute positively to taking greater account of effects on financial stability; calls on the Commission, in the context of the revision of the IAS Regulation, to explore ways of being provided with a systematic formal feedback from the ESAs;
3.

Urges the Cambodian authorities to revoke the arrest warrant for, and drop all charges against, opposition leader Sam Rainsy and CNRP members of the National Assembly and Senate, including Senator Hong Sok Hour; calls for the immediate release of the five human rights defenders still in preventive custody, namely Ny Sokha, Nay Vanda, Yi Soksan, Lim Mony and Ny Chakra, for these politicians, activists and human rights defenders to be allowed to work freely without fear of arrest or persecution, and for an end to political use of the courts to prosecute people on politically motivated and trumped-up charges; calls on the National Assembly to reinstate Sam Rainsy, Um Sam An and Hong Sok Hour immediately and to restore their parliamentary immunity;
G.

whereas women and children with albinism are particularly vulnerable to social exclusion; whereas albino women are often the target of sexual violence, owing to the widespread belief that sexual intercourse with a woman with albinism can cure HIV/AIDS, and whereas women who give birth to albino babies are rejected and discriminated against at work; whereas children represent a large proportion of the victims of ritual attacks and face a high risk of abandonment; whereas the fear of attacks has resulted in school-age children not being able to enjoy their right to education;