kfajdsl/voxpopuli huggingface dataset:
as everyone knows this was not possible before. a number of points in the report have been taken into account and specific actions have been launched. this relates in particular to fostering civil military synergies better usability of the eu battle groups
training financing and cooperation with key partners in particular nato and the united nations. we also support the reinforcement of relations between the eu and the united nations.
we have already done a lot together.
mr president once more we have preened ourselves in this parliament on our green credentials and speakers have competed to push higher and higher the unrealistic targets for energy from only renewable sources and the targets for reductions of co emissions
all in the belief that by our puny but costly efforts we will save the planet.
yes we should use and promote sustainable energy sources but pursuit of what for most has become a dogma with no regard to cost or viability needs to be tempered by reality including the reality that climate change is not new
virtually every speaker in the debate rightly condemned paedophile activities and pornographic abuse of children. likewise the misuse of the internet drew the wrath of many.
grooming sexual abuse and child pornography should have no place anywhere in the eu nor should we tolerate any of it.
silence is the best friend of paedophilia.
we have seen it in churches families and communities where a blind eye has been turned leading to some of the scandals of which we are aware in our various member states.
mr president we would like to explain we do not support the request of the gue today.
it is not because we do not think we need full transparency on these issues.
it is precisely because we think we need full transparency and because we think to take this very seriously that we need more time to look at these issues and these questions in depth and then come back to the plenary look at what is the best methodology to deal with this matter and by preference have a good discussion
mr president our group would strongly like to support the request of the greens we support it fully.
it is very important that they come up with strict rules on endocrine disruptors not based on an unlawful impact assessment but based on scientific criteria.
i think that early warnings are important but we all know how quickly the weather moves and how quickly the weather changes.
i know in the case of gloucestershire where i came from we were greatly helped after the floods by connections most particularly with austrian regions where they had major experience of flooding in highly elevated areas.
and organised crime in his country.
despicable murder.
mr president i should just like to second what our president has said about our deep condolences to the american people because of this attack on the consulate in benghazi where the american ambassador has been killed and to say that these condolences should also be extended to the brave people of libya who do not deserve the terrible image given by this
attack by a few fundamentalists.
not all members may be aware of its existence and i wish to draw your attention to it.
if you vote for this then the whole of the rest of the motion falls. it is in support of the hungarians being free to determine their own constitution without pressure from the eu. i would like to say that but also i would be very grateful if you could conduct an investigation and let us know why it did not appear properly this morning.
the last time i spoke in this parliament i said that we need to be cool we need to be calm we need to ensure that we all get the best deal.
it is in the joint declaration that we carry the strong political message in support of speeding up the granting of free visas to all the people of the western balkans. it is thanks to the responsible position of the ppe group which brought the process back on track and in the right direction on a sound legal basis according to the treaties that we could achieve such a political success.
forcing into a legal annex a political statement was just misleading and sent the wrong message raising false expectations for the people in the region.
i am told that the existing translation is at best opaque and at worst misleading and incorrect. i am not aware of any problems with other languages but that is not surprising.
i have spoken with ms meissner the rapporteur who is in agreement with a postponement of the vote to allow more time for an accurate translation. i am sure you will agree that this is an important point.
members must be fully aware of the details and understand properly what they are voting on.
by voting this report we are giving away parliament's meaning our citizens' powers for free and on a very important matter like visa policy impacting people's freedom to move work and study.
mr president i would like to propose that the chamber votes on the amendments to the draft legislative act first in order to give the members the opportunity to reinstate parliament's position on fundamental rights safeguards against website blocking and a stronger position on consumer rights.
it is a very important subject.
i am sure you are all delighted that we have adopted a declaration asking for adequate funding for vaccinations in developing countries.
since that day there has been a torrent of legislation which has been brought forward in the name of security or counter terrorism but which in fact owed much more to the long held plans of financial integration.
we have now had immense increases in state power police power surveillance and control of movements of capital but i struggle to think of a single directive or regulation that has made less likely a future terrorist attack. what it has done was of course what it was intended to do right from the beginning which was to have
madam president in the fight against terrorism and organised crime the headlines naturally focus on the more sensational and obvious aspects of operations such as police dawn raids and arrests.
but one of the less publicised and less known aspects of prevention is the issue of finding ways to prevent the global financing of terrorism through the financial markets.
we need only to look at the relationship between the diminishing activities of al shabaab in somalia and the crackdown against piracy for an example of this.
this report introduces a number of measures that will bring greater transparency to the financial system particularly in terms of establishing a central public register of beneficial owners particularly in offshore jurisdictions.
i also welcome the report's focus on balancing the need to account for cross border transactions with the wider considerations of data protection and privacy also being taken into account.
the largest beneficiary of eib soft loans in the uk for a long time was british airways which is hardly a small company but was at the time very involved in supporting the campaign to join the euro.
where by standing behind organisations that make loans and take risks we end up encouraging people to comport themselves in the expectation of bail outs so that the profit is theirs but the losses are socialised.
when people start acting on the assumption that there is a safety net we get what we had when the financial crisis came five years ago.
we should be working towards a situation where loans can go bad and banks can collapse and it is not a problem and where there is a plurality of competing providers rather than trying to create a system of consolidated capital where failure is impossible because failure is necessary to capitalism just as sin is necessary to religion.
we need to make sure that there are no longer any taxpayer funded bail outs of failing banks and that banks are allowed to fail if they get into trouble.
we need to make sure that directors are liable for that failure so that they can enjoy the rewards of good performance but pay the costs of failure. we need to reform accounting standards to make sure that once again the accounts are an accurate reflection of a bank's health and that they make sufficient provision for potential losses and do not book their profits up front.
if we can do that there is no need for these supervisory authorities.
actually we do not need to imagine.
we only have to go back a hundred or so years and that is what happened.
you will find advertisements with banks boasting about what their assets were and allowing consumers to make a rational calculation do i take a higher risk for higher return? if people are encouraged to think that somebody else is on top of the risk for them you infantilise them.
that is what happens now you get e mails with hundreds of pages of documents which nobody reads whenever you act as a private investor but which gives you the idea the false impression that someone is looking after the risk for you.
there is an experiment that took place recently in part of the rocky mountains where they took all the warning signs off the mountain roads. do you know what happened?
accidents became less common because people knew that they were on their own.
if you give people more responsibility they will behave more responsibly.
but on this occasion we did vote in favour because the humanitarian issue was so pressing.
the difficulty is that if we are being told we are not allowed to put in an oral explanation of vote then we are denied the right to tell the people back in the uk why we have done what we have done.
mr president can i just remind members of my group not to follow the voting list in the bundle but to follow the separate voting list that has been distributed on this report.
one is that in this house we tend to speak only on those issues that directly affect our own countries and given that we are having a debate in ireland on the lisbon treaty where we are talking about solidarity across the european union i think it is a habit we should break. i think more of us should speak about issues of concern in other member states that we know of so that there is a sense in which there is greater solidarity among members of this house regarding the concerns of their citizens.
i would for example like other people to take up concerns that might arise in ireland for my citizens.
i think it would help us to promote the idea that europe works for all and that we are not just looking after our own.
that has been one of the failures of the european union and it is something we are grappling with in the debate on the lisbon treaty.
let me support what you are doing here and express my solidarity for the problems in southern europe.
deal with those who deliberately destroy.
look at prevention.
it will serve as an important contribution to the discussions on the proposed external financial instruments and will be an important pillar for the definition of the region's strategic priorities.
the past decade has seen unprecedented growth levels in the region.
many of the middle income countries now have the necessary means and solid bases from which they can build their national development plans.
this is exactly what we describe in the agenda for change communication and also with the proposed external financial instruments. we need to concentrate the scarce resources available where they are needed most and where they will have the greatest impact.
this does imply that the more advanced developing countries would graduate out of bilateral assistance and cooperation.
however this also means that we would engage in a different kind of development relationship with these countries based on the facilitation of investment projects for example through blending mechanisms and regional programmes as well as taking advantage of their experience through trilateral or south south cooperation.
to further underpin the relations with the more advanced countries we also count on the newly proposed partnership instrument through which we hope to bring our relations to yet higher and more sophisticated levels.
regardless of the differentiation applied in the development cooperation instrument it is the commission's intention to commit a significant level of funding to the latin american region under this instrument which combined with the availability of different external cooperation instruments and programmes will enable us to define the most appropriate strategy for each individual country in the region
as for the process of defining these strategies the principal priority areas identified by the report are very much in line with those identified in annex iv b of the commission proposal on the development cooperation instrument.
to conclude the eu will continue to be actively and significantly engaged in the latin american region.
they have changed from that of donor beneficiary solidarity to one of equal partners. the proposed external financial instruments should give us sufficient flexibility and scope and at the same time the necessary concentration and focus to develop effective cooperation strategies with each individual latin american country.
we have all been intensely involved in courageous and far sighted decisions and reforms to construct new and better economic governance for the union.
however i have to admit that after numerous negotiations the proposal on european statistics has lost some of the ambition and objectives of the original text.
in particular we need to clarify and strengthen the coordinating role of national statistical institutes within their national statistical systems and to ensure that member state governments commit to preserving the professional independence of national statistical institutes by signing commitments on confidence in statistics.
that creates an additional imbalance between the european and national levels in terms of the status of the heads of statistical authorities.
this proposal has been on our agenda for some time but somewhere along the way the initial objective got lost in discussions.
such an important report about a key element of the single market and indeed public policy is confined only to one minute interventions.
i think it is welcome that mr tajani is here because i want to say to him that public procurement is a key instrument for encouraging innovative enterprise across the european union.
mr barnier we know is now going to have a look at strategy and i hope will pick up many of these things.
but the core of the problem colleagues is that we have a regime which as this report says is confusing and complex and indeed which many public authorities regard as a bureaucratic imposition instead of an opportunity.
the contracts went inevitably to the same people all the time who of course time and time again went over time and over budget but were never penalised.
this is a redundant piece of legislation.
mr president i would like to clarify that the committee has asked for this to be deferred because we have been the subject of a procedural violation.
we have also been told that the commission legal services will not agree to a text that is not wholly in accord with the common understanding even though the common understanding is not legally binding.
we cannot accept this unilateral change as a precedent in any way and therefore we will not vote until the matter is resolved.
we cannot allow the interinstitutional agreements or common understandings or anything else to restrict the power of this parliament that has been conferred on us by the treaty and therefore this text cannot be allowed to proceed.
the eu insurance market is fragmented but for our consumers and customers there are significant inconsistencies especially regarding information requirements. this means that customers are more likely to misunderstand the risks costs and features of an insurance product.
policyholder protection as well as selling practices for different kinds of insurance need to be improved. i am not convinced that this recast properly reflects these specific consumer concerns.
i would like to have seen parliament go for a bolder and more ambitious position for consumers than the report that is being presented by the committee on economic and monetary affairs. furthermore i am very disappointed to see that this recast feels the need to change alternative dispute rules adr and binding decisions when adr has only very recently been agreed on by this parliament. this is of particular concern for those countries that have gone further.
if you take the uk as an example the financial ombudsman has the power to introduce binding decisions on businesses in favour of consumers.
so this recast will potentially weaken protection for consumers.
this is very worrying especially when on this issue the rest of europe should be trying to meet the highest measures of consumer standards and certainly countries that go further should not be held back by this particular proposal.
the needs of working people who find themselves thrown out of work through no fault of their own require support.
the need for us to support and protect and also to make adjustments where necessary is vitally important.
i support this fund.
one of them described it as a gift from the european union and that is the way it was intended to be.
however the application of the fund has somewhat let people down in terms of their expectations.
but we also tend to be too inflexible particularly when people are trying to start their own business and also on the matter of the time we give the fund.
mr president we see once again how the european union elevates appearance over substance how it elevates motive over outcome.
we have just voted through a series of resolutions condemning human rights abuses in china.
and we are collaborating with it to create a rival to the american system of gps which president chirac refers to as technological imperialism'.
see how hypocrisy has been elevated into a governing principle! we bleat about human rights and then we funnel money to hamas.
we refuse to deal with the anti castro dissidents in cuba we disregard democracy within our own borders when referendums go the wrong way but we convince ourselves that we are still the good guys because look at the text of our resolution on human rights!
we are now going to have the extraordinary spectacle of sending baroness ashton as our foreign representative to iran and cuba and these places to tell them that their democracy is inadequate when she has never once in her entire career subjected herself to the ballot box or invited her fellow countrymen to vote for or against her.
i shall finish if i may by congratulating the good people of massachusetts for taking a stand against excessive taxation and excessive government.
it was the people of massachusetts who began the revolution in order to get away from the idea that taxes could be levied without popular consent.
we need such a revolution again here in europe.
my sincere concern is that when we reach a political agreement and then have to turn our attention to the details and delegated acts or implementing acts it is very difficult to get them right.
i am greatly concerned with regard to the reform of the agriculture policy that there are three or four difficult issues that might not be completed by march and therefore we will have a problem of implementation next year.
questions on interpretation have come up all too often in negotiations and it is really time to step up our efforts to find horizontal solutions to these recurrent problems.
certainly in the modern era when so many countries have moved forward in trying to respect human rights to see some of the activities of this islamic state in terms of beheadings the treatment of women and their use as gifts for soldiers
we see that regions with urban characteristics sometimes work very differently from rural regions and face different challenges.
while urban regions often offer better economic opportunities and infrastructure they might face problems like pollution traffic congestion crime and overcrowding. rural regions on the other hand often lack infrastructure.
these differences can also be observed when it comes to coastal regions in which a large share of gdp is generated by the blue or ocean centric economy.
the proposal is quite timely as it for instance includes a definition of cities that helps support the implementing of the urban agenda and city focused policy.
as of now there is no agreed legal definition of what a city actually is in union law and this as we all know hinders a common understanding of the term and leads to the risk that we might not speak about the same thing when we talk about cities.
it is horrible.
we are angry and we are disappointed.
mr president as rapporteur for this dossier which we had scheduled for a vote on thursday i would like to say that we are prepared to defer it for another month because we believe we may now be able to reach a first reading compromise.
the situation was that four member states france germany italy and portugal were not prepared for certain statistical data to have to be submitted compulsorily.
that was the situation the impasse we reached at the end of the danish presidency.
there has been a lot of coverage about this in the media and the new presidency has been able to exert a little more pressure.
there is a potential provisional agreement and i think that i have to wait for it to be submitted.
obviously this is a matter of urgency because how we collect statistical data and particularly from regions which is what this relates to is very important in being able to prove that there are no surprises in accounts.
we are convinced that public services play a key role in the european social model because they make an important contribution to social stability and territorial cohesion. this is why services of general economic interest are one of the key priorities in the state aid field during our mandate.
we are glad that there is such an intense debate going on about this topic between parliament other eu institutions and all stakeholders. we particularly welcome parliament's contribution to this debate.
it reflects the importance which parliament attaches to establishing a clear legal framework for services of general economic interest.
let me recall that our reform is based on three objectives clarification simplification and a more diversified approach.
since then we have published draft texts that show how we think the objectives should be translated into rules.
the reply to the public consultation on the draft texts has been rich and fruitful.
the direction of the reform is broadly shared by all although stakeholders have different views on the details of the changes.
this is why in the coming weeks we will work to further improve on the delivery of the three objectives.
the report by the european parliament could not have come at a better time.
it has been able to take account of our draft texts and thus to provide us suggestions on how to further improve our texts.
it will prove a particularly valuable contribution to the reform.
let me briefly focus on three points in mr simon's report a major tool for simplification in our reform is the new de minimis regulation.
the report suggests that a threshold based on the size of the municipality is not necessary to restrict the de minimis regulation to small local services and that a three year approach would be more flexible than the current one year threshold.
secondly the report requests that additional social services be covered by the decision.
social services play a very important role in our society and there is less need for very strict scrutiny.
this is why under the more diversified approach they benefit from exemption from notification and more lenient compatibility criteria of the decision. i am open to assessing evidence and arguments to improve the scope and treatment of social services where justified.
thirdly parliament considers that the commission cannot define efficiency criteria under state aid rules.
let me underline that the current drafts do not require undertakings to be efficient nor do they allow the commission to check for efficiency.
the draft texts only require that undertakings be given incentives to improve their efficiency.
i know that some of you are nevertheless afraid of such a change.
however those efficiency incentives only apply to large commercial sgeis that we assess under the framework.