kfajdsl/voxpopuli huggingface dataset:
that is not to say that solutions in syria are easy but at least the eu needs to act as a global player and should be united.
there is a clear need for a new coalition of the willing to save lives and to ensure a transition to a syria which does not fall into a domino pattern of revenge actions and sectarian war.
despite the weapon supplies and the less than responsible attitude we have seen so far russia must be part of the solution.
i welcome the contact group you mentioned if it leads to action instead of distraction.
do you also see more room for targeted eu sanctions to pressure al assad and how will you ensure that eu sanctions are enforced and that no more ships such as the one from russia carrying weapons can dock in cyprus and then reach syria?
the sensitivities or rather the temperaments of some of my colleagues in my group might be different some more inclined to intervene more quickly others more aware of well everybody is aware of all the complexities of the situation but
are ongoing and that we finally see the departure of a leader who certainly morally has become completely illegitimate.
i would like to say a few things now about the arab spring or what we call the arab spring.
of course no two situations are alike and the situation in each of those countries is different.
the elections might not have given all the results we would have hoped for but at least in most of the countries where they took place they have taken place in rather satisfactory circumstances although there are question marks about the way things have gone in algeria.
i believe that the people in those countries deserve our continuing support and one of the worst things we could do is turn our backs on them because they have not one hundred percent voted the way we would have ideally liked them to do.
that is also about pilot projects and preparatory actions.
it should be very well equipped with money.
it therefore supported the council's cuts on two budgetary lines concerning administrative expenditures.
thank you very much for your attention.
to let the union run out of money.
i wish to recall that the council reached an agreement on its position on the draft budget for two thousand and thirteen following difficult negotiations and accepted a limited increase in commitments and payment appropriations compared to.
five moreover the european parliament proposes to go beyond the ceilings of subheading one a requiring the mobilisation of the flexibility instrument. secondly the council regrets the increasing payment appropriations that the european parliament intends to vote on especially when their level exceeds the commission's draft budget. the council is aware of the european parliament's intentions to support and highlight several of its political priorities. however the overall level of payment appropriations retained should be sufficient but not overestimated.
six finally i would like to remind you that the council is opposed to the broad use of reserves that you intend to vote on especially when their release is accompanied by conditions which are not in line with the provisions of the financial regulation.
two thousand and twelve we are all aware of the considerable effort and budgetary constraints that member states are currently facing at national level and we have to take these into account.
last week at the budgetary trialogue i had the opportunity of giving some initial reactions to the amendments which the european parliament intends to vote on.
then we have the famous supervisory bodies created a couple of years ago to avoid any more financial scandals.
why are projects like the earth monitoring programme and the space research programme getting over eur three hundred million?
i can assure you that none of these vanity projects will be putting food on the tables of europe's growing number of increasingly angry poor people.
this is a badly managed project producing technology that rivals already brought to the market years ago.
does anybody in this house seriously believe that we will help recovery by funding space projects?
this does not mean ignoring the need for budgetary restraint;
mr vaughan has done a great job in this direction.
cuts must be made but they must be made in areas which do not harm our priorities.
mr president my thanks to the rapporteurs for their good work and balanced proposals. the most important issue now is maintaining our credibility by remembering the reality outside these walls and keeping in mind agreed priorities.
at the same time we must not give in to council pressure to limit the budget in preparation for the negotiations for the mff.
we must therefore maintain spending in research development and innovation.
of course we support jobs and growth but i consider that much of the money which we need to do that could be found from savings elsewhere in the budget indeed it must be found from savings.
there is a great deal in their reports which we can support and i acknowledge that they have shown restraint in many of their proposals.
to that end there are two ways in which we in the european parliament can help.
i also acknowledge the problems with payments caused by the reste liquider' issue and i would recommend that in the long term this parliament as a scrutinising body needs to take steps to address this problem.
however for the two thousand and thirteen budget i urge this house to show more ambition. i urge it to support the council's demand for restraint by freezing the size of the budget.
this is a critical time for financing in all the member states' national budgets and in particular they have an urgent need to direct all possible resources to creating jobs and restoring growth within their economies.
mr president i congratulate both our rapporteurs;
the planet is populated by the governments in the hague in stockholm in warsaw in sofia everywhere and we are critically revising what is coming from these governments as their request for decent financing for.
because we have critically revised what is coming from the member states.
another colleague mentioned the issue of the single seat.
people will be aware that many members of this house are quite sceptical about that particular project.
i also wanted to emphasise to colleagues that the joint working group i mentioned in my first contribution is still meeting.
that work is ongoing and we hope to have the final report on that at the end of the year. when we get that report hopefully we can make some further recommendations in terms of savings for the european parliament.
so although i know many members think we should go further and find more savings i also know that many members feel that we have already gone too far and made too many savings.
another colleague mentioned the house of european history.
ago. therefore this parliament is able to say that we have set in place a responsible budget for two thousand and thirteen and that we will continue to look for further savings. as rapporteur i have also been encouraging other institutions to set a responsible budget.
therefore the european parliament took very seriously the commissioner's letter earlier this year when he suggested to all the institutions that they limit the increase for two.
this working group i am glad to say has been able to identify more savings.
detail. i am therefore proposing that we partially reinstate the budget of most of the other institutions to around
i think that shows in the fact that there are no budget line amendments to be voted on tomorrow and that we are able i believe to stick to the agreement we reached with the bureau some time
they looked at the savings that every single member state is having to make at local and national spending level and concluded that eu public spending must be subjected to the same discipline. the committee's report says and i quote parliament must provide the council with a clear budget that calls for a budgetary freeze
increasing spending where it matters and cutting it where it does not.
' sadly the meps said one thing in the report and then did another. they identified areas to increase spending but in nearly every area where they could have supported a cut they voted against it.
i and my british conservative colleagues will not be supporting parliament's proposed budget.
i expect the commission to take this initiative and help more than six million people in europe.
we have received four hundred and forty signatures.
in conclusion i would like to say that we judge relations between the eu and tunisia as solid and friendly and that we believe that there is indeed a potential for further strengthening of those relations.
including the action plan.
in international relations tunisia is close and a reliable partner for the eu.
negotiations have also been launched on the gradual liberalisation of trade in services and the right of establishment as well as on agriculture and fishery products.
tunisia takes an active part in the european neighbourhood policy and the commission's periodic reports on implementation by tunisia of the european neighbourhood policy action plan are clear in their assessment tunisia has achieved progress in a number of cooperation areas
the views it expresses and the positions it takes within international organisations and in other fora are moderate and balanced.
economic reforms have progressed allowing for a steady growth of the tunisian economy as well as of trade volume with the eu. important results have been achieved in the social field in areas such as health care education the fight against poverty and the protection of women's rights.
the conclusion of these negotiations together with approximation of the relevant legislation will mark a new stage in relations between the eu and tunisia and progress towards the integration of the tunisian economy in the eu single market.
political dialogue with tunisia has been continuous on all the subjects covered by the action plan which are addressed in ten subcommittees and in working groups.
we also expect that tunisia will show a real drive towards more democratic reforms and freedom of expression.
tunisia needs our support encouragement and dialogue not a constant stream of senseless invective.
in my view those who have engineered this debate are making a deliberate effort to sabotage much of the progress in eu tunisia relations in recent years.
a multiparty political system is fast taking shape in tunisia and it is a country where women are fully equal members of their society.
perhaps because of jealousy at its success perhaps because it is small and possesses no oil so no there is no economic leverage on the eu unlike libya or saudi arabia.
it is bitterly ironic that the left who claim to be so much in favour of women's rights attack tunisia despite the fact that this country offers women opportunities and freedoms unprecedented anywhere else in the arab world.
so maybe we should learn something from the tunisians.
this has been achieved by the suppression of their islamist extremists and communists which is a price well worth paying.
the more i find out about tunisia the more positive an impression it makes.
this is a lesson that many european countries including mine the united kingdom could well learn.
my constituents who are some of the poorest in london cannot afford that kind of expenditure.
which in my opinion is a conspiracy against the voter to keep the conservative and labour parties in and everybody else out.
they have the most stable society in north africa. they have what is technically a democracy though possibly only a semi democracy by western standards but we should not criticise them for that since they have made much progress.
only seven of the population lives below the poverty line. it has one of the best health standards among countries in north africa with a relatively high life expectancy.
law no one hundred and eight bans the hijab which goes much further than anybody else has proposed.
politically their constitution limits the number of seats a party can hold in the chamber of deputies with twenty of seats being reserved for minority parties. this looks positively enlightened when compared to the first past the post' electoral system used in the united kingdom
let us help them increase their democracy and develop prosperity and if they would like to take some free advice let them keep well away from the european union and preserve their freedom and independence.
we want trade friendship and cooperation with tunisia but not at the price of robbing the taxpayer in the uk.
speaking of the uk my party the uk independence party came in for some criticism from some islamic extremist and supposedly liberal quarters last week when we proposed a plan that people's faces should be uncovered in public buildings and in private buildings if those concerned wish to impose such a condition.
there is an official policy of working towards full democracy and tunisia is a stable society with a high level of personal security.
its official policy is the pursuit of cultural unity the creation of one nation.
law. it should by the way also respect its own international commitments in that field.
of human rights and democracy.
the commission will pursue our policy of engagement and dialogue on those issues particularly in the framework of the bodies created by the association agreement.
to act; otherwise eu cooperation will be confined only to the economic
outcome. i certainly agree that working in that area exposes us to certain political
it was correctly known by them as the ship from hell and it has since been thrown out of mauritanian waters.
it is incredible to think that we have figures of two hundred million women and girls that are missing from the world's population simply because of systematic targeting of women and girls.
it was only carried narrowly but surely nobody could support the spending of eu resources in that way.
we also have the issue of unborn children and in particular girl foetuses which are aborted simply because of their sex. in this context i was pleased to see that parliament supported the proposal that union assistance should not go to any organisation or programme which supports any action that involves human rights abuses such as coercive abortion forced sterilisation of men or women or prenatal sex selection and infanticide.
the raping and killing of women in their teens and in later life is just a continuation of the mindset that supports sexual discrimination at all ages and sees girls foetuses girl babies and girl children as expendable and something that can be eliminated.
the report proposes very practical changes to the regulation in order to protect tradesmen and those who work in what you might call irregular' conditions or workplaces.
without these changes there is a very real danger that the european union's rules could negatively affect the rules which protect workers' rights in the member states so again i commend the report to the house.
two thousand and twelve this report provides an excellent basis for a potential amendment to the brussels i regulation.
a leaked document revealed that just one of these firms tobacco giant philip morris has had meetings with two hundred and thirty three meps one third of this parliament all of this taking place behind closed doors in the most untransparent manner possible.
mr president to quote the musician david byrne the true face of smoking is disease death and horror not the glamour and sophistication that pushers in the tobacco industry try to portray.
nine tobacco firms twenty two tobacco industry lobby groups and twelve pr firms including former senior fine gael advisors have been spending millions of euros in lobbying and wining and dining meps.
i therefore voted for the maximum regulation of this industry including larger health warnings and the plain packaging of cigarettes.
mr president this directive is the very minimum that is required to prevent and deter a new generation of smokers.
the human cost to smokers and their families in terms of sickness suffering and death is tragic and incalculable.
the irish government just this week produced an ambitious and comprehensive plan to make ireland tobacco free by.
in ireland five two hundred people die each year from smoking related diseases such as cancer stroke and respiratory disease these are all avoidable deaths.
i am an ex smoker. i suspect many people in this place are and there is nothing better than an ex smoker in terms of proselytising about giving up but i do think that we need to be sensible about it and we need to help people not force them.
the first is to stop young people from starting smoking and the second is to help people give up.
so personally i have two objectives here.
it is on those particular axes that i was making decisions on voting here and most particularly on e cigarettes which is where i think the rapporteur went horribly wrong because there is no evidence that e cigarettes start young people smoking so it does not help me on that one and there is plenty of evidence that it helps people to give up.
mr president very rarely do we get the opportunity in this parliament to discuss something which really gets into the very fundamental reasons for why we are here and what the purpose of regulation and legislation is and this one will certainly make people think because i like everyone else want to stop people smoking.
i think that today members showed that they can resist the power of lobbies when it comes to the health of our citizens and particularly the future of our young people.
' so we have to be very careful about the perception of us' before we lecture others on issues such as corruption and confidence in companies doing business.
however the attempts to make e cigarettes a medicinal product are counterproductive in my view.
e cigarettes may not be perfect but they are preferable to thousands more dying needlessly in britain and across the european union.
e cigarettes may not be totally harmless and require more research of course but not one death can be attributed to them. on the contrary hundreds of londoners have insisted to me that e cigarettes are actually improving their lives and fear that new restrictions making them into a pharmaceutical product would push them back towards smoking real cigarettes.
this new eu legislation will do more to combat an activity which sadly contributes yearly to seven hundred zero cancer cardiovascular and respiratory caused deaths in europe. many tpd aspects regarding the size of health warnings types of packaging and descriptors are indeed positive.
mr president i was happy to support this directive and indeed i was a member of the irish parliament when we introduced the ban on smoking in the workplace.
that legislation of course was to protect smokers' health but also to protect the health of others from second hand smoke. i have to say that in general i have a certain wariness of the nanny state particularly at eu level because it is so difficult to change it.
so it was in that context that i decided how to vote.
however my starting point on this piece of legislation was that i asked myself if tobacco were being introduced for sale today would it ever make it to our supermarket shelves? and the answer to that is no.
i voted against the imitation tobacco products being banned because that is nanny state and i did not vote to include e cigarettes as medicinal products.
at that time i fully supported that groundbreaking legislation.
mr president as the member of the european parliament representing gibraltar i have read this report with great interest.
despite much effort from the gibraltar government these difficulties have not been resolved.
in fact the spanish government has now withdrawn its participation from established three way talks with the gibraltar and uk governments on this and many other subjects. i therefore welcome this report and its call for the peaceful settlement of disputes concerning maritime areas and the delimitation of maritime boundaries in conformity with the rights and obligations of member states.
i call on all eu member states to respect the rights of all eu citizens including the citizens of gibraltar in this area.
mr president i wrote an article a couple of months ago in which i made a jocular and throw away remark to the effect that every continent in the world is now growing economically except antarctica and europe.
and then i received an email from a spanish friend with a list of statistics that showed that actually antarctica is doing fine the cruise ships are returning and the antarctican economy is recovering in line with the rest of the world.
so we alone in this part of the world are trapped in a customs union that is dwindling.
i think deep down we all know excessive taxation excessive regulation excessive government we are doing all the things that are undoing the nature of our rise and our success over the past centuries.
we have it in our gift to change and to integrate our economies with the rest of the world to drop this dream of fortress europe and protectionism and trying to preserve a separate model.
and if we do not take that opportunity we are the authors of our own fate and like tolkien's eldar we will diminish and go into the west.
you cannot help noticing that the countries in south america where the destruction of parliamentary government has gone furthest namely venezuela ecuador and bolivia are the three big energy exporters.
for every exception for every norway or alberta you have a dozen irans nigerias and russias because you have broken the link between taxation and revenue and you have given governments an easy option which is to interpose themselves between the resources and the foreign investors so that they are positioned in such a way as to receive
the best thing we can do for developing countries is to encourage a multiplicity of supply encourage the rule of law arbitrated by an independent magistracy and encourage competition.
that will do more for prosperity than any amount of western aid.
mr president i do not believe that any members of this house could possibly be against the gomes report's noble aims of reducing organised crime corruption and money laundering internationally and their impact on human rights.
social corporate responsibility is of paramount importance and we must encourage greater transparency internationally especially in areas where there is the potential for human rights abuses;
but the approach set out in this report calls on the commission to promote international wide ranging binding legislation that goes well beyond what i would deem to be within its mandate.
there is even reference to awarding the un special powers of criminal investigation.
mr president it sometimes concerns me that the committee on women's rights focuses too much on issues which are not the responsibility of the eu but rather of national governments within member states and my delegation frequently votes to reject reports which intrude into member states' sovereignty. but on this occasion i am pleased that it is the european parliament which is putting this sensitive and difficult issue on the agenda. this is an important and urgent issue.
currently in the uk there are two doctors whose registration is under review because they have offered to abort baby girls on the grounds that these foetuses are female.
there is disagreement at a legal level as to whether these doctors have committed a crime or not but i am not interested in that principle the fact remains that misogyny in our society still exists at such a deep psychological level that women feel the need to come forward for abortions under these circumstances.
it is my view that a society which allows the abortion of female foetuses on the grounds that the foetus is female is a society which does not value the contribution of women and girls.
i place the issue of equality between the sexes in high regard and it is a political priority for my government.
i understand the wish for growth but this is not the way to achieve it.
these awful practices have led to gender imbalance in countries across the world especially in asia where studies have found that sex selective abortion can lead to increases in human trafficking and violence against women.