kfajdsl/voxpopuli huggingface dataset:
if i analyse where this progress has taken place in three quarters of the member states matters are at an absolute standstill.
we need this strong message because there is a lot of movement in our member states to get out of the actual situation but they need to be helped and to be supported.
i hope very much that tomorrow's vote will be a strong message to improve the representation of women in politics and a source of inspiration for all stakeholders involved at national level.
progress has only been achieved in those member states where there are national quotas in the netherlands from fourteen to nineteen in one year and in france from twelve to twenty two in one year which really shows us that maybe
in our society and in our companies not to utilise the female talent.
so i launched the public consultation the first ever public consultation by us on this subject by the way and we are obliged to have a public consultation before we come out with a proposal.
to be integrated into our economic world.
to make further progress also in the political field because there also participation by women is stagnating and no clear positive trends are being seen several political parties have discussed the best way to increase participation by women and six eu countries have introduced binding measures to increase the number of women in politics belgium france poland portugal slovenia and spain. the only thing which is growing is the
i call on this parliament tomorrow to help them and to support them.
we very much welcome the focus in this year's report on equal economic independence equality in decision making and the need to guarantee equal pay for equal work.
but let us be realistic we will not be able to fight comprehensively violence against women with this piece of legislation only.
if progress is not being made at national level it is the responsibility of the european union to act notably with a legislative proposal in order to guarantee equality for all its citizens men and women. this is actually the logic of the subsidiarity principle not the other way around.
if member states are failing to guarantee fundamental rights for all the issue has to be addressed and tackled at european level.
i am therefore turning to you madam commissioner to tell you that you have a majority in this house waiting for concrete proposals which would allow us to deliver on gender equality and the fundamental principles of the european union.
it is good for us;
i will not let anyone use the crisis as an excuse for not doing this.
the gender pay gap remains at an unacceptable level gender based violence is still taking thousands of victims every year sexual and reproductive rights are threatened women have difficulties on the labour market just to give you a few examples. i am asking for a clear commitment from the commission and from the member states to change these unacceptable conditions.
now is the time to reinforce those values not abandon them.
madam president i am pleased to see as many men as women speaking in this important debate this evening because it is only if we address this issue together that we can make equality a reality.
women are equal.
some countries in the european union today still require transgender women to undergo full sterilisation simply to be who they are.
women deserve a safe strong and equal place in our society regardless of whether they are lesbian gay straight bisexual or transgender.
let me finish by saying that the slow pace of change in two thousand and twelve is depressing.
if that violence or that inequality is wrong for us then it is wrong for the woman it is wrong for the other.
it is as simple as that.
violence is often targeted against women because they are different because they are lesbian bisexual or transgender.
the exclusion of women from politics and the economy remains the norm around the world.
the fact that we are still having this debate now means that we are not achieving. the economic crisis is being used as an excuse to do less and to abandon our values.
inequality can be seen in persistent wage gaps unequal opportunities and also sadly in the continuing violence against women in all its forms.
one of the most significant examples of this was the removal of the marriage bar whereby women who worked in the public service were denied the right to work after they married.
irish women particularly have much to thank the european union for.
for that reason i believe that the implementation of quotas is necessary to improve the participation of women.
in my mind human rights are never subject to voluntary action if someone wants to give human rights to someone else.
women are very strongly segregated in political decision making.
it is stated in various international conventions that women's rights are human rights.
then comes the question what should we do?
we need education active media a platform for civil society and women's organisations to work.
the call for quotas and for prescriptions of rank order is in danger of constructing a formula that is so prescriptive that the real selection decision is taken by the formula deviser and not by the political party.
in a democracy political parties are private organisations and are not creatures of the state;
they must be free to decide who should represent them as candidates without state interference.
parties in my view should decide candidates on merit and neither on the basis of discrimination nor on the basis of quotas.
how long will it be before the voter in open list systems is forced to cast high preference votes for both male and female candidates regardless of party and to cast appropriate percentages of the vote for various approved minorities?
perhaps in the end the poor voter will have the right only to cast a ballot paper that has already been completed by affirmative action or positive discrimination.
not only do you say that you are opposed to same sex families but you actually deny their very existence.
i think that is very offensive to all those same sex families with legal status in many member states.
you should deregulate.
first of all briefly on quotas i think there are a couple of misunderstandings here.
this is not an instrument to push incompetent women into top jobs.
this is an instrument to break the glass ceiling which is not a visible brick wall but consists of very subtle invisible sometimes even subconscious mechanisms that favour men over women.
that is what we need to tackle.
secondly i heard the word subsidiarity' a number of times in the debate when we talked about lgbt families in particular.
we very often discuss matters here which are outside our competence but i would say that free movement is one of the four pillars of a europe without borders.
why does that only apply to one single model of families?
why not to all families in the whole of the european union even in those countries where the families exist but the people are not recognised?
in my country for example same sex couples can legally marry.
it is a law and i find it very annoying that a law in my country is not recognised in another country.
this is not about imposing gay marriage on all member states.
it is simply about mutual recognition.
we recognise the ingredients of cheese and beer across the european union.
why do we not recognise love and family the most important things in our lives?
this is something which is perhaps very strange to a lot of us.
their value fluctuates like any physical currency and this works in a bubble which is unregulated and pretty much unregulatable.
so what does the european union do?
well it wants to do the same thing that it does with everything that it does not currently control it wants to interfere and to regulate.
to me that is completely the wrong approach for anyone to be taking on an issue like this.
it is a shame we have not got longer to develop this discussion but i am sure it is one that we will be able to pursue separately later on and i am grateful for the work on this technology that underpins virtual currencies the databases that enable a secure online ledger of transactions to be kept. i agreed with him wholeheartedly that this is both an important and an exciting area and i also welcomed the
very balanced approach that he advocates that we take which was not to regulate everything but to keep an eye on the developments of this to recognise and embrace the opportunities but also to be aware that there could be some dangers to which we need to be alert.
that is the approach i agree that we need to take.
we have been monitoring this issue for some time as one of the areas of potential risk.
we have in recent months accelerated our work in order to investigate some of the concerns raised by the justice and home affairs and ecofin councils that virtual currencies could in fact be linked to the financing of illegal or terrorist activities. so i am grateful for the support set out for our plans to bring virtual currency exchange platforms into the scope of the fourth
anti money laundering directive.
that proposal is set to be adopted in june;
it will ensure that people exchanging virtual currencies for hard currency on exchange platforms can be more easily identified and it should improve our ability to trace transactions if the need for that arises.
but as mr von weizscker said while it is crucial that we are attentive to these risks it is extremely important to remember that the technology that supports virtual currencies has many other uses and brings with it exciting new opportunities.
the distributive ledger technology offers the potential to speed up transactions to make it simpler and cheaper and safer to gather data and to use it to improve business processes.
to give just one example blockchain the technology behind bitcoin has recently launched a claims record system for reinsurers and it will use blockchain technology to record details of claims so that insurers and reinsurers can more accurately divide the costs between them.
so we need to keep a careful eye on how the technology is evolving and being in used.
in the commission we plan to set up a fintech task force to monitor developments in new technologies including those linked to virtual currencies.
we will continue to work with the eba and esma governments and the european parliament and also we need to pursue this internationally in our work with iosco and the fsb.
we need to be on top of developments and if the evidence shows that action is needed be ready to act but at the same time we should not choke off the potential that this technology has.
that is why for instance i am very interested in ideas being developed in for example the netherlands and the united kingdom to develop a regulatory sandbox in order to create a space for some of these fintech developments to be properly considered.
i think it has potential to support the collation of safer more up to date and more reliable data it has potential to increase the financial sector's competitiveness in europe it has the potential to improve customer services and i look forward to working with parliament as we
we would add to the end of the paragraph and looks forward to the successful conclusion of the negotiations to cancel this contract'.
the millions that have been spent on communications with the citizens have been to no avail.
a work life balance advertisement has upset working women and groups trying to encourage breastfeeding.
i am sure that you know that statistics in the uk show that only sixteen of the public know about the elections but what should be of concern to you is that these statistics are no better across the other member states. in fact thirty have no intention of participating in the forthcoming elections.
mr president you need to deal with this situation urgently have the offending advertisement withdrawn and make sure that we have a simple message as to why people should participate in the forthcoming elections.
mr president the other day i was in birmingham. i was knocking on doors a particularly british way of campaigning and unsurprisingly not a single person whose doorstep i was on had the slightest clue that there was to be a european election in less than six weeks' time.
this lack of interest and awareness is as much the responsibility of this parliament as of anybody else.
what is particularly frustrating for me is that the promised election awareness advertisement has spectacularly backfired.
this parliament should be a shining example of openness honesty and transparency and instead there sometimes seems to be a code of secrecy here to keep hidden the true extent of abuse of allowances by some members.
newspapers reported publicly last november that one of our members den dover had paid expenses worth gbp seven hundred and fifty zero intended for the employment of staff to a company owned by his wife and daughter and had used some of this money for the purchase of expensive cars and for other matters of personal gain.
our refusal to introduce the same sort of principles of financial transparency that we would expect of any other european institution brings shame upon us all.
most people regard dover as no better than a thief a crook who should be in jail and i invite you mr president to tell us how much of that money has now been repaid.
this industrial action brought very serious disruptions to flows of freight through this vital trans european route.
this has been a frequently recurring problem and i ask of the commission that they use their powers to intervene to ensure that this interruption to the free movement of goods and people within the european union is brought under control. furthermore i ask of the commission is in their view the award of eur four million
it adds enormous cost and delay to industry and severely disrupts and inconveniences the lives of people living in the south east of england.
the third is eu solidarity in the face of the false accusations against one of its members a possible pretext for freezing the military situation in the area in breach of important undertakings in the field.
the second is the eu response to the procedural breach by the moldovan authorities in implementing their agreements with us and by discriminating against european citizens on nationality grounds.
eu human rights legislation means that we can no longer effectively protect ourselves from foreign criminals illegal immigrants and bogus asylum seekers.
eu membership is a disaster for britain.
it is a grievous and unnecessary self inflicted wound.
the european arrest warrant and trials in absentia mean that we have lost our most basic protections from unjust arrest and imprisonment.
we no longer control our own borders and suffer unlimited and uncontrolled immigration.
mr president glorification of terrorism takes many forms but when a member of this house eulogises vile murderers whose killing careers came to an end when they met their just desserts at the hands of lawful security forces
then that member has put herself at variance with everything that this house has ever said in condemning terrorism and those who sanitise and justify it.
there is nothing decent or honourable about terrorism past or present.
shame on any member who proclaims such obscene adulation of men of blood!
so perhaps the commissioner would refer to that and perhaps also to concerns around russia and their proposal to ban livestock exports because of the schmallenberg virus?
i know in this house we have concerns sometimes around how detailed and complex and bureaucratic our regulations are.
so we can be grateful that we are at this stage and that it augurs well for the future.
but there is one issue which i think has not been resolved and has not been mentioned here so there is still some caution on this.
it is my understanding from the us side that the regulations on the use of lactic acid treatment for the carcases is not to their liking is not at all practical.
so yes we have achieved a great deal and we have broken the deadlock on a trade war but i think we need to do a great deal more for both sides to benefit from this solution.
it seems that everyone is in very good humour this evening because we have solved we hope a trade war that has lasted for far too long fifteen years.
i suppose from the eu perspective it is not good to hear this but this is what they are saying to us and therefore they will need more clarity on that.
indeed i too welcome as the commissioner did the publication of the draft rule by the us authorities on friday. i think it is an act of good faith and we hope that it follows through with the reopening of the market for eu beef to the usa.
i think we have made the agreement but we have to do the detail.
my last point and i will repeat it is on the issue of practical regulations.
we ask our american counterparts to respond in good faith and remove the bse ban on eu beef.
long lasting conflicts such as this one which has lasted for almost fifteen years do huge damage to effective multilateralism.
doing so should push us closer to breaking down trade barriers and moving towards a more integrated trans atlantic market space to drive jobs and growth and to launch the free trade negotiations at the next eu us summit.
in line with this sense of urgency i believe we should all parliament the commission and the external action service work to encourage the us to stop any disproportionate protectionist measures. the remarks by president sarkozy who wants to match the buy american' clauses with buy european' measures shows what kind of downward spiral this can lead to and it would be undesirable.
our cooperation should be based on mutual trust reciprocity and complementarity.
with the rise and growth of the economic power of the bric countries the us and the eu share a huge interest in ensuring that the wto rules are respected.
in both the eu and the us we can benefit from keeping the global perspective in mind.
this report should be used as a stepping stone for broader eu us trade relations.
like others in this chamber tonight i would look for an early resolution to the import ban and hope for the early adoption of the new bse rules by the us.
we view this development as a step in the right direction.
we export about seventy of everything that we produce and this is particularly true in the beef sector.
it is that the new proposals for the common agricultural policy have at their heart a disadvantage to the beef sector in northern ireland which tends to be more intensive and is characterised by small family farms and we fear that the new cap will only advantage landlords.
it rectifies the unjust stance taken by the us in relation to agricultural produce from the eu and i hope that it can be viewed as recognition of the high quality safe and wholesome food that is produced by european farmers and which is so eminently traceable.
let us be clear it is a win win for both sides. in the eu we get to keep our ban on hormone treated imports of beef and we also lose the us trade sanctions that have been put upon many of our exports.
this can only bring benefits to both consumers and producers in the united states and in the european union.
i would hope that all colleagues in the chamber here tonight would urge the us government to adopt these new rules as swiftly as possible and build on and reinforce the trust between both the eu and the us on trade issues.
i fully understand some of the concerns raised tonight and i am confident that a continued dialogue amongst the institutions is the solution towards achieving an optimal legislative framework which would respond to the needs of all stakeholders involved whether they are patients or authorities or pharmaceutical companies.
i believe that there should be some fairness and parity in this.
our debate demonstrates that we are fully committed to making progress on this proposal.
of course member states are and should remain fully responsible for regulating the pricing and reimbursement of medicines.
new provisions have also been introduced by the european parliament for more transparency in the decision making process with the requirement to publish experts' names and declarations of interest as well as an annual list of set prices for products.
our objective has been to strike a balance between the need to set up common transparency and procedural requirements while guaranteeing legal certainty and flexibility for competent national authorities with one principle in mind accessibility and affordability of medicines for all. we therefore call for clear timelines for the pricing and reimbursement of innovative products
it was firstly essential and fully relevant to include in this proposal the main conclusion of the two thousand and seven pharmaceutical sector inquiry led by dg competition.
with the opportunity to use health technology assessments. two other key elements for the financial sustainability of national healthcare systems are the shortened timelines for generic medicines and the non interference of intellectual property rights with pricing and reimbursement procedures.
we have also heard the concerns raised by several stakeholders including national delegations within the council.
i know that discussions within the council are more than difficult and i would like to take this opportunity to reiterate our willingness to engage in a constructive way and to come up with an optimal proposal which could ultimately bring significant progress for the efficiency of national healthcare systems.
i am convinced that fair practices in our pharmaceutical market would also be beneficial to patients and national healthcare systems.
this is a major improvement on the commission proposal.
another main issue was the unrealistic time limits on pricing and reimbursement.
i do not believe the eu should be facilitating the pharmaceutical industry if this comes at the expense of good public health procedures and sustainable public health budgets. thankfully many concerns we had on the proposal have now been removed or addressed in a substantial way.
without knowing what others are paying member states are not empowered to negotiate for the lowest price.
firstly contrary to its title the proposal failed to make transparent the real prices paid across the eu or which patients are getting access to which medicines.
of course there is a difficult balance between member states' right to organise their public health systems the need for a sustainable pharmaceutical sector and the interests of patients. i believe we must respect and defend national health authorities' right to organise their own health systems understand the diversity in european health systems and recognise the current difficult economic context.
again this is a major improvement on the commission proposal.
in the committee vote we have reversed this reduction for originator medicines and doubled the proposed generic time limits.
the proposal for sanctions and penalties on member states for missing the time limits has been removed.
this is an issue that has to be dealt with urgently as a woman's decision to have a child should not imply her exclusion from the labour market.
women are over represented in low quality precarious positions and frequently have few opportunities for career advancement. lack of policies to reconcile work and family or private life inappropriate incentives or rigid gender roles can contribute to this unfavourable situation.
overcoming these challenges features high on the commission's political agenda.
third a job is the best guarantee to avoid unemployment and exclusion in society.
the solid conclusion emerging from the first european semester was that the member states need to put in place a comprehensive policy mix to combat the gender employment gap and its main causes.
first our engagement is reflected in the priorities of the strategy for equality between women and men which defines actions addressing cross cutting women related issues.
indeed stronger governance of employment policy can provide a strong framework for improving the work conditions of the female workforce.
its persistence indicates a need to tackle the underlying causes and to enforce the existing rules more effectively.
second i would also draw your attention to the employment package which points to women's integration into the labour market.