kfajdsl/voxpopuli huggingface dataset:
the cyprus situation shows how critical this is and a key amendment to us was the ability for regulators to write down or convert junior tiers of capital or subordinated debt prior to any taxpayer funded bailout.
the ability for member states to introduce their own higher standards is sometimes vital and the uk's ability to implement a ring fence must not be lost.
secondly we need to make sure that there are tougher liability standards for the directors of banks so that they take responsibility for failure either directly or indirectly.
we must get the markets functioning.
we need urgent reform where we need to seek out the resolution system.
this makes any interpretation in a regulation or directive of the global standards set by the basel committee critical to the future safety both real and perceived of the european banking sector.
therefore i suggest that rules and capital requirements for ficod defined financial conglomerates need to be addressed urgently to reduce systemic risk in some of europe's largest financial institutions.
my concern for long term european investors is once again not fully addressed and although the cva charge has rightly been dropped for non financial companies i am disappointed that the same exemption has not been secured for pension funds.
we need to do more to recognise their unique role in the european financial system.
i respect the indian legal system and have the deepest sympathy for the families of the fishermen that were killed but as a former military officer i have sympathy for the plight of the marines.
military personnel often have to make life or death judgments in very difficult circumstances and sometimes they get it wrong.
it is such teams that have been the decisive factor in the major reduction in piracy in the high risk areas of the arabian sea and the gulf of aden.
of course i cannot make any judgments about the circumstances and legalities of this particular tragic incidence; nor can anyone else in this chamber.
this is not a court of law and we do not know the answers to a whole range of legal questions and technicalities.
this is unacceptable and every diplomatic effort should be made to bring the case to a rapid and fair conclusion.
i urge the high representative particularly to use her good offices with the italian government and also with the indian government to help bring this about and i would request our indian friends that we settle this matter quickly now with the best possible outcome for all concerned.
mr president i rise to express my disappointment about the way in which this matter has been addressed by this house. i have strong reservations about the resolution proposed.
i agree that we need to speed up developments to ensure legal certainty for all sides involved but my concern is that the failure to address indian issues will do just the opposite.
at the heart of this case is the fundamental question about how we treat our partners. while the eu has a duty to stand up for its citizens it is hard to understand why the lives of two indian fishermen should be valued lower than the liberty of two eu citizens.
yesterday's decision of the indian supreme court to allow mr latorre to extend his stay in italy is an indication of india's goodwill.
i call on ms mogherini to avoid further escalation of this case which is fundamentally a bilateral issue between italy and india.
secondly investment in the digital infrastructure of the single
as announced in the single market act ii the commission also plans to adopt by spring two thousand and thirteen legislation on e invoicing in order to make it standard for public procurement.
sphere. in particular the commission is reviewing the copyright acquis to identify what aspects may need to be modernised and adapted to on line challenges. we shall be in a position to draw conclusions in two thousand and fourteen about what changes may need to be made to the acquis
and fourteen and two thousand and twenty this proposal is now being examined in the budget negotiations for the seven years to
i would mention the consumer agenda the green paper on parcel delivery the green paper on payments by card via mobile phones and the internet and the communication on on line gambling.
fifteen of total commerce gains for consumers would be in the region of eur two hundred and four billion.
agenda. firstly it is to establish a legislative regulatory and policy framework that sends out the right signals for business investments while strengthening consumer trust and legal certainty and secondly to keep the digital single market on a solid political footing.
this is not just a response to the commission's very good paper from dg internal market about competence and trust in the internal market.
the committee agreed two years ago to set up a series of monthly working groups led by pablo arias to address all the issues around moving the single market forward.
they have been held in public we have taken evidence and we have had a lot of engagement from the commission.
we have now given pablo arias a mandate to continue this work because i think the biggest single lesson from this report as is indicated by the richness of all the contributions we have had from many colleagues here today is that this is a huge agenda.
we think that we need to move this forward with the sort of structured plan that we have with the single market act a clear set of timetabled actions to move the digital single market forward.
i think that will be very much in our thinking the third single market act the digital single market act and pablo arias and his team are going to work on that.
the uk supported the eba to be a police enforcer to pull up standards across the single market.
also you cannot have strong supervision without strong rules.
in the uk the socialist government gave away that power and it was a very expensive mistake.
we must not confuse the role of the ecb as supervisor with that of the eba as single market enforcer. votes matter. if the ecb was to block vote against the non euro zone member states and that was perceived as trying to drop standards within europe then that would undermine the euro zone even further.
financial regulation has become a shield to protect crooked bankers while politicians central and commercial banks spend money they do not have.
i take this opportunity to ask as there are british conservative colleagues in the house tonight will cameron stop this?
how will the single market and the single rule book for the twenty seven be preserved and how is the eba going to function with seventeen members represented by a single body balanced against the other ten? solving the constitutional quandary will not be easy and in doing so i hope that the commissioner will be able to answer all of these questions to the satisfaction of this house and all twenty seven governments.
mr president today's debate on a euro zone banking unit is the content of an oral question and now even though i have seen the commission's proposals it seems all i still have are questions.
how will cross border and third country relationships in the financial services be treated?
the eu treaty article being used might seem convenient to redistribute the powers of supervision but the barrier of unanimity is going to be a difficult safeguard to overcome.
i am concerned that this benefit is now more marginal.
however we should not pretend that this is a mutualisation that gives over the pockets of the ecb to backing euro zone banks.
there are ways that this can be done and the moral pressure is enormous. we are turning the ecb into the banking supervisor at a time of crisis and a time when the ecb itself has moved centre stage in both economic and political events.
be seen to play a strong role beyond that of merely giving an opinion.
we do not expect regulatory failure but in such an event an inquiry has to be possible.
without such inquiries we would not have found out about many aspects of the financial crisis and what went wrong.
waiving independence in this respect would help to demonstrate the separation of the supervisory side of the ecb from the monetary policy side.
on disciplinary matters the procedure should as far as possible mirror the norms of national procedures.
if a banking licence is at stake then this review procedure is not fast enough.
i do not wish to see that as the model to follow.
more work needs to be done to protect the single market.
that is a role for an international supervisor.
there is of course also an issue of ensuring gender balance on the supervisory board. having the chair and vice chair selected from the ecb's men only pool is not satisfactory.
finally supervisory policy is a matter for the single market and the eba not just the ecb.
a single rulebook is no longer sufficient we must have a single supervisory handbook compiled using the expertise of supervisors from across the union under the auspices of the eba.
it does seem that if the ecb is being asked to actually supervise the euro zone banks then it is going to be acting as a supranational competent authority.
i am not sure i have the answers to it yet and i hope someone else does.
mr president banking activities of a systemic nature with an impact beyond borders are a stark example of why we need the eu its institutions and its regulations.
it is also evident that the state led interventions to stave off self inflicted disaster on the part of our banking sector had extremely serious consequences on many levels beyond those directly stemming from the financial crisis itself.
our citizens have lost incomes social entitlements and public services.
we thus have many good reasons to welcome any solutions to enhance our pan european supervisory capacities and to break the link between the sovereign exchequers and banking sector losses.
absolutely and that is why every time commissioner barnier has come to our committee and i have been able to ask him the question will we implement basel standards in europe?
in the uk that is why we are reforming banks so that we will not have to bail them out because we are putting in a ring fence.
we must have the ability to implement the global standards and allow member states to go further if they need to.
mr langen it is very good to hear you saying that you want to have a single market and a single set of rules.
i too agree we need a single set of minimum rules but would you also say that your vote for those single rules was dependent on ensuring it did not cover smaller banks?
therefore those rules are ok provided they did not cover the small banks in germany?
now that might have been a feasible model fifty years ago when the main competition was coming from southern and eastern europe.
you can give your workforce the most generous entitlements paternity leave maternity leave holidays and maximum working days up to a certain point before the factories start closing and the jobs start fleeing abroad.
the only way out of this mess is to allow people to compete.
it takes away what ought to be the main pressure on a government to reform and be competitive.
it is plainly not a feasible model when the main competition is coming from china india south america and the rest of it which is why western europe's share of world gdp has halved in the last forty years and will halve again in the next twenty years.
one way of thinking of the european union is that it is an attempt to prevent that process by allowing each country to export its high costs to its competitors.
you can raise your taxes up to a certain level before the money starts fleeing to friendlier jurisdictions your revenues go down and you find that you have to correct it.
in addition given the current financial crisis and the budgetary constraints involved we must make sure that each euro is spent efficiently.
the eib should also contribute to the fight against corruption and lack of transparency and this could be done by collecting relevant information on beneficiaries and financial intermediaries.
the european investment bank is a driving force to foster development growth and employment within and outside the european union.
the implementation of the eib eu financial instruments should be based on ex ante policy objectives and criteria combined with the transparent and efficient ex post reporting system.
as such it is integral to the existence of the union offering five hundred million people in the world's largest economic bloc the right to trade freely and competitively. against the backdrop of the financial crisis a strong comprehensive single market is required now more than ever and can only be achieved through a framework of strong governance and leadership.
the single market is an economic concept;
although they are important topics to monitor and address matters of welfare and social security lie outside the remit of the single market's ultimate goal of promoting economic growth and full employment.
but let us be clear.
it is not intended to deal with social issues.
what the single market needs now is better and more structured governance with a commitment to less bureaucratic red tape and a strong economy.
the commission must now strictly and constantly monitor and assess the implementation of this partnership in each of the member states.
one in five people between the ages of fifteen and twenty four is unemployed.
in addition of the twenty six million eu citizens unemployed eleven million have been unemployed for more than twelve months.
in november two thousand and twelve roughly twenty six million citizens of the eu twenty seven were unemployed and of these a staggering. five seven million were under the age of.
mr president we cannot turn away from the alarming unemployment figures in the european union that have risen due to the current economic crisis.
twenty five so young people in particular are being hit the hardest.
it is essential that this problem be tackled head on so that we do not look back and consider this to be a lost generation.
to ensure the stability and prosperity of the single market we must continuously maintain and update to function properly in our ever changing world especially in the midst of these uncertain times.
mr president the creation of the single market is one of the greatest achievements of the european union and has promoted a european integration that only seventy four years ago could not have been imagined.
the people rely on us to effectively deliver economic growth and this cannot be done without improved efforts to make the single market work better for businesses and for citizens.
mr president ageing is a challenge we must all face and in fact for the record professionally i trained as an old age psychiatrist.
the elderly are a growing portion of the eu population and have a great deal to contribute to our societies.
growing older should have no correlation to quality of life and it is important that we ensure that all of our respective national elderly populations age with grace and with opportunities to continue to be active to learn new things and to enjoy their lives.
one of my constituents in london will experience growing older quite differently to another in paris in budapest. as a social policy there is no eu one size fits all prescription for healthy ageing.
public health matters such as this are place specific and for this reason remain within the competence of member states.
while we can agree to the goal of supporting our ageing populations the issue falls best within the national local and regional context not done by the eu.
mr president duplication and redundancy is a plague amongst many of our national governments.
in an international organisation such as the eu we must be even more vigilant in avoiding repetition and in streamlining our efforts.
measures have already been taken to coordinate and simplify cross border legal issues and programmes repeating these efforts would be unnecessary and fiscally irresponsible at a time of austerity. existing efforts to increase coordination between our respective national courts share the same goals and set a sufficient judicial standard without compromising the national legal traditions of individual member states.
complete harmonisation is therefore not needed with regard to national judiciaries and in fact would violate national sovereignty. with regard to the proposed network of court coordinators the initiative would be redundant in the light of existing programmes and would threaten subsidiarity in the united kingdom so my group and my party did not support this proposal.
mr president the idea of banning trade in products from endangered species is one of those things that sounds terribly nice until you look at the consequences of it.
where people have been prevented from trading in other words prevented from treating local wildlife as a renewable resource they have very naturally hunted that wildlife to extinction.
whereas in the small number of territories where wildlife is treated as the property of the person on whose territory it finds itself people have been given an incentive to renew and care for its numbers.
you see this in the relative boom of elephant numbers in south africa as against the total extirpation of the species in kenya because the one recognised property rights and the other simply banned it.
my constituents face rising costs of living and a squeeze on the family budget yet the reality in the european institutions is very different.
we continue to see staff levels at unsustainable levels and the rich rewards for staff in terms of remuneration and pension provision.
while people at home tighten their belts it seems for the eu that austerity is simply an alien concept only for member states and the people who elect us.
such an attitude is unacceptable and breeds contempt.
by all means target money at productive schemes but cut out the waste that cannot be justified.
i am very pleased to have voted with the centre right majority on a proposal for growth friendly fiscal consolidation.
it is also not about spend spend spend and going back to the policies of the past that the left wanted to take us to.
they wanted us not only to work on tax evasion together but to go towards tax harmonisation and we said no'.
they wanted us to condemn our national leaders who are going into today's budget negotiations looking for the same care in how money is spent at home as in europe.
i actually say well done' to those leaders.
mr president it is clear that each member state suffers from the same kind of ageing demographics.
i am proud to say that in my own constituency of northern ireland we are leading the way in relation to the e health agenda and our participation in the innovation partnership.
in northern ireland we are using technology to assist patients and healthcare professionals to better manage health and social care which is leading to improved patient care and easing the burden on our hospitals.
mr president we have been talking since the financial crisis about the need to harmonise taxes as part of the general move towards a common finance ministry and debt pooling and so on but it is easy to forget that the european union has been operating a form of tax harmonisation from the very beginning.
nowhere is this clearer than in the field of indirect and corporate taxes.
vat was imposed in the united kingdom in effect as a preparatory measure in parallel with our application process.
it is an unpopular difficult expensive tax.
it is not easy to pass on trace and then collect but much more seriously than that tax harmonisation has the effect of reducing tax competition and thereby reducing what would otherwise be the main incentive for downward pressure on rates.
far from having harmonised rates of sales taxes across europe i would go in the other direction.
i would like to see regions within countries and localities being able to compete on the basis of different tax rates.
that would of course require us to leave the european union which some would say is a delicious bonus.
we must give full support to the idea of integrated judicial training for european lawyers.
by creating a european judicial culture and common ethical standards we will increase the level of mutual trust between national courts and decrease the burden of the court of justice.
we should use the internet and other computer based applications for pcs ipads and iphones in order to create digital networks of judges and legal professionals.
at the same time policymakers and lawyers must work together to develop a proper professional code applicable across the european union.
i am happy to see that we are finally discussing this issue and i believe that this is not yet over.
mr president corporate social responsibility programmes can have powerful impacts at local level on alleviating social issues throughout the world.
for businesses which choose to create such programmes and have the capacity to manage them i fully support their endeavours but businesses should have the right to choose whether or not to participate in such programmes and this decision lies firmly with its shareholders and boards of directors.
the promotion of csr goals must consider smes especially and the unique challenges that they face.
while it is great for all to lend a helping hand when they can csr programmes and their implementation should be voluntary and conducive to successful enterprise.
however as the epp shadow rapporteur for the european instrument for democracy and human rights i would like to refer to one aspect in particular and this is the protection of human rights defenders which in my view must be one of the union's key priorities.
human rights defenders as we call them are brave people people who often face an incredible amount of political pressure abuse and injustice.
the union must take bold steps to protect the lives of people fighting for its values.
we must also show that we have the courage to act.
i call upon the commission and the council as well as on the malay government to urgently work for an immediate moratorium on the practice of caning followed by its elimination from the law.
mr president inflicting physical pain is against human dignity. caning is a gross violation of human rights.
beating up people and whipping people on behalf of the government must stop.
it is against the right not to be tortured but also against the right not to be subject to inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment.
therefore in addition to gross human rights violations we have government officials committing a crime by taking advantage of people's suffering.
accounts show that the pain is so great that victims often lose consciousness.
however the commission would like to suggest widening the resolution to cover all countries where judicial caning unfortunately still occurs.
the human rights commission of malaysia and the malaysian law reform committee should make adequate recommendations to the government concerning the abolition of corporal punishment laws.
malaysia is thus violating its commitment to resolution eight eight of the un human rights council which states that corporal punishment can be tantamount to torture.
the legal process leading to this form of punishment is often lacking and immigrants are not being informed about the charges against them or are being denied the right of access to legal counsel.
it is very clear that it forbids war crimes crimes against humanity genocide and so on but caning in my view is not forbidden by international law.
if we do not stick to the facts we bring this house into disrepute in my view.
mr president malaysia has moved towards a more islamic form of governance in recent years.
malaysia is a muslim majority country and such punishments are commonplace in many sharia law based countries and are mandated by the koran which serves as the ultimate legal authority for all muslims.
indeed caning is a relatively mild punishment compared to some of the other extremely brutal methods of punishment used in some muslim countries including amputation lapidation and beheading.
caning should also be seen in the asian cultural context for example neighbouring secular singapore also sentences criminals to caning and the indonesian province of aceh which receives a lot of eu aid has recently introduced caning under its sharia law policy.