kfajdsl/voxpopuli huggingface dataset:
no book of evidence has been submitted and ibrahim has had to endure horrific conditions including physical abuse.
i ask people here to encourage political unionism and the irish and british governments to re engage in meaningful all party talks to ensure that all outstanding elements of the good friday and subsequent agreements are implemented in full so that the irish peace process can continue to provide an example to conflicts around the world.
it was this inclusive dialogue that led to meaningful progress. in recent times the principle of engaging in such dialogue has been found wanting within political unionism and both the irish government and the british government but especially the latter have largely disengaged from the process. eu institutions which have supported the irish peace process need to be aware that flag protests the breakdown of the haas negotiations and the walkout by unionists from all party talks some weeks ago threaten the political institutions that underpin the peace process in ireland.
yet to this day we have made no progress on this issue and in case you did not know eurostat confirms that ireland which has less than one of the population of the eu carried forty three of the net cost of the banking crisis.
we now have banking union therefore the eu cannot renege on its promises.
jean claude juncker said earlier this year i think there must be some degree of retroactivity' in the esm otherwise it will lose most of its sense'.
the summit statement spoke of the euro group examining the situation of the irish financial sector in the context of using the esm to retrospectively recapitalise irish banks.
mr president i wanted to draw attention to the horrific floods now hitting india and pakistan and not least the divided state of kashmir where we have seen hundreds of deaths the displacement of thousands of people and a huge loss of livelihood.
however i think that we should be welcoming the mutual offers of assistance between the governments of india and pakistan during these floods.
i really want to urge the european union to actively support engagement between those two governments over the questions of improved water management and disaster preparedness in that area. this is a real opportunity to bring governments together to actually work for the benefit of their people rather than pursuing this ongoing conflict.
mr president europe needs to focus more of its resources on advanced manufacturing and engineering.
making things has become terribly unfashionable but it is actually what we are good at in this part of the world.
our young people need sustainable quality jobs and we need to give them the tools.
now commissioner liquidity measures as others have said are not fully resolved and i do fear more perverse incentives around the growing concentration on sovereign debt and short term instruments.
to the banks i say we cannot give weight to your protestations while your aggregates are cloaked in secrecy and you stamp confidential' on everything.
we must think and not replicate the same measures in every piece of the prudential regulation where they may not be appropriate and would destroy investments in equities and the real economy.
banks must be able to withstand the type of crisis that we have just had and capital is crucial to that.
g twenty was clear.
why does europe have to be the cry baby of basel?
as soon as a framework is agreed for harmonisation and stability the wriggling and the wheedling to make holes starts and frankly it is no better here.
i am fed up of it.
the beast of perverse incentive was rampant.
the facts are clear.
this is not what we intended with the supervisory architecture.
madam president can i say to the commissioner that when we voted on supervision i said our legislation was like swiss cheese full of holes places where the common rule book would not reach. then last week bankers from around the eu assembled for eurofi discussing basel iii. the word on everyone's lips was national' national flexibility
i am not blind to the problems of the real economy and the need for banks to lend and like others i look forward to the macro economic and cumulative impact assessments not just of basel but of the whole post crisis financial regulation that you commissioner and commissioner rehn both promised me in your competency hearings.
we must be very careful here;
so as far as i am concerned the extended timetable of basel is enough slippage no more.
we cannot continue to have the taxpayer bailing out banks.
it is very clear from the number of amendments across the floor that meps want to look at the detail and at the impact.
when we make an international agreement we need to make sure that it is implemented globally not just here and in wall street but globally.
they are doing that.
i agree that where we have good local practices we should allow them to continue but let us examine those in public and not bring in exemptions through the back door.
and as vicky pointed out the taxpayer is bailing out these bankers and also funding the redundancy packages and the pension funds and the golden handshakes of dormant regulators etc.
so there is a lot of work to be done to get the balance right and i think that is the key here.
other companies pay twenty three twenty four in tax on average.
the approach of this house is to empower national competition authorities to protect citizens in each and every member state to make sure that when they enforce european competition law they have the independence the human resources the resources and ability to have digital evidence and of course to impose fines that act as a deterrent.
the two things will have to go hand in hand.
this is why we have done our best to enable farmers to come together to have higher prices and lower costs and are also working very closely with colleagues in the commission to make sure that when there is legislation on unfair trading practices these are targeted and actually help the people that we want to help.
this house did not wait for a scandal like the facebook scandal to unfold.
we will of course continue to do what we do but we also need to work with colleagues who work with legislation in general.
it was decided in the previous commission and this is why.
we need legislation as well.
i hope that we can work together to pass this directive within a very short timeframe because it is a signal to citizens that you should not only look to brussels but you can also look to your national competition authority and know that they are empowered to protect you in order to have a fair deal in the marketplace.
i will be more than happy to report back to you in writing.
but of course state aid enforcement does not solve this.
i find that this is a very important message from this house tonight.
regarding the things that we are discussing right now when it comes to data i think this is the best example of the fact that we need competition law enforcement to the spirit and the letter of our regulation but we also need new regulation.
when it comes to agriculture i think there is a deep and very common understanding of the fact that the bargaining powers in the value chain are very different from being a small individual farmer to being large retail chains.
that is being done.
that is the start of the enforcement of that decision looking into the choices that google have made.
it is to have strong effective regulation that makes sure that pesticides are safe.
this of course includes the work that we do on state aid because if success is about getting the biggest subsidy from government and not about serving customers in a better way then obviously consumers lose out. so we have decided that amazon had to pay back some eur two hundred and fifty million in unpaid taxes to luxembourg.
in fact two thousand and seventeen turned out to be the second busiest year of european merger control.
they are also to make sure that government support for important priorities like research and fighting climate change has the right effect to make sure that public money does not just replace investment which companies would have made anyway;
and it will mean that companies are still driven to innovate to produce better safer pesticides.
but of course those rules should not make it difficult for support where our economy needs support.
so our common european actions match our ambitions on research on climate change on support for small and medium sized businesses and on social infrastructure and i am very keen to discuss the proposal with you once it is complete.
that the market serves the customer. that enables our union to do what citizens expect that they make sure that they get treated fairly.
i know that members of this house and people in the european public as well have concerns about this industry concerns that go well beyond competition but the right way to deal with it is not to extend the competition rules;
in a couple of weeks the commission will present a proposal for a new multiannual financial framework and as part of that we are looking at how we can make state aid rules simpler so that it is easier for european funding from the european budget to link up with national funding.
last month we approved the merger between bayer and monsanto and we only did that after the companies agreed to sell off businesses worth more than eur six billion. that will mean that farmers will still have a wide choice as they did before when it comes to suppliers of seeds and pesticides
we also need to defend competition in digital markets so consumers get a fair deal online and this is why we are watching very closely and analysing indepth in the most granular way to make sure that google treats rival comparison shopping services fairly. a case is not done with a decision
we have launched investigations into the tax treatment of inter ikea in the netherlands and whether the uk rule on tax avoidance involving controlled foreign companies treats some businesses differently from others. but state aid rules are not just about tax.
that aid does not deny innovative companies the chance to compete.
as the rapporteur said in his weighty and thoughtful report competition makes a difference in people's lives and i am very happy to be here today to have a chance to exchange ideas with you.
we have one of the most integrated single markets in the world. it is a rules based single market and we have got to make sure that our competition policy delivers rules for consumers and for businesses big and small to make sure it is fair competition and we need in the annual report as has been said by the rapporteur to make that very very clear.
they need support they need resources and they need a legal basis to take cases.
three particular points in relation to my own country in ireland we have to prove on a criminal charge which is a very high charge whether or not an enforcement can be taken.
secondly in ireland we do not apply a leniency programme which would encourage national competition authorities to cut deals with people to give evidence so that those cases can be taken in court to reduce fines for those businesses that come forward with evidence.
we need some agreement in the overall agreement to make sure that that flow of information continues based on eu rules and it is important that in the uk actually lives up to the cases that will follow their leaving of the european union.
the third point is a brexit related issue as you can understand in my country we share information with the uk on a daily basis with their competition authority to our competition authority.
i promise not to talk about tax tonight!
we also need to support national competition authorities i think you said before commissioner that eighty five of all cases are taken at the national level.
i very much support the ecn directive which is about giving additional support to national authorities.
keeping in mind that competition policy is enforced not only by the commission but also largely by the national competition authorities it is a good thing that the report encourages the european competition network plus ecn proposal so we can progress towards the strongest capacity more resources autonomy and transparency.
it penalises new entrants and small and medium sized enterprises compared to multinational corporations which are the only ones with the resources to implement aggressive tax planning schemes.
i am glad to see that the report encourages as well the common consolidated corporate tax base negotiations pointing out that this would solve europe's problem of unfair tax competition.
it also specifically mentions the amazon case the commission having recognised that the company benefited from illegal tax advantages.
however amazon is not the only company named in the report there are also several mentions of google which has abused its market dominant position by giving an advantage to another of its products its comparison shopping service preventing potential competitors from emerging in the search engine sector.
one hopes that this is not happening for the wrong reasons. in principle competition policy is meant to ensure that free market rules apply to the benefit of consumers all over europe.
in this it has been difficult to avoid onesizefitsall approaches that failed to discriminate and still fail to discriminate sufficiently between north and south island and metropole peripheral and central.
the privatisation of major infrastructural functions such as in transport and utilities and now public health has simply been seen as economically desirable if cast in competitive format.
but the social impact as well as some economic ones have not been given sufficient attention.
now the emphasis is also shifting towards state aid considerations with regard to taxation policies.
such policies are still subject to the sovereignty of member states but competition policy is being deployed to oversee and correct for them. one gets the impression in fact that the rules and methods by which this is being done are created on the hoof basically on a case by case basis. tax flexibility within member states under conditions of course.
a full transparency should be considered as an integral part of the competitive situation and is vital for the prosperity of smaller member states and the single market.
it will be a pity if competition policy comes to be driven according to the urgings of the tax populace while pushing for harmonisation of tax policies and we have no problems with choosing competition policy to achieve this.
however we should watch out.
it helps us prevent the over concentration of economic and financial power and it is also a key tool for moderate prices better quality products and services and of course greater choice for the consumers.
this competition policy is ensuring a fair standard of living for the agricultural community as the farming sector is under pressure from constant economic and climate related hazards.
a market oriented common agricultural policy needs to provide support for farmers and grant additional timelimited exemptions from certain competition rules.
when i came to this parliament for my hearing i singled out implementation as one of my three priorities.
we are here today to debate and adopt as the last piece of environmental legislation of this parliamentary term important amendments to the european union regulation on shipments of waste. they aim to strengthen the enforcement and inspections of the waste shipments regulation
to help prevent illegal shipments of waste.
as i am frequently reminded by members of this house this is a very serious and frequent problem today.
considerable amounts of the waste we produce leave the european union illegally mainly to destinations in africa and asia where it has a severe impact on the environment and human health.
the commission is therefore very pleased to have reached an agreement with parliament and the council on waste to address these shortcomings.
first under the planned new legislation all member states must establish inspection plans to target the most problematic and high risk waste streams.
these plans must include the elements needed to establish sufficient inspection capacity and effectively prevent illegal shipments. a key part of the planning process is to carry out risk assessments covering specific waste streams and sources of illegal shipments.
second new provisions will enhance the powers of national inspectors by enabling them to request the necessary documents and evidence from exporters.
third the new legislation will facilitate the prevention and detection of illegal shipments through improved cooperation and exchange of information between the member states.
effective implementation of these new provisions by relevant authorities and inspectors on the ground is of course of the utmost importance. to signal that the commission is committed to assisting them in this crucial task by providing guidance on relevant aspects i would therefore like to make the following declaration.
the commission intends to make use of its prerogative to adopt guidance including on risk assessment for inspection plans and as necessary electronic data interchange.
i should also add that one of the changes introduced to the commission's proposal in the first reading deliberations requires us to make a declaration on the use of the non opinion clause for the adoption of implementing acts.
what i am going to do in my final speech during this mandate is emphasise the fact that this report shows the problem solving capacity that we have in the european union.
people often believe that we are slow that we are divided that we do not cooperate but with a strong commissioner a strong rapporteur and a very cooperative attitude by shadow rapporteurs and even a council that is willing to solve problems that we are facing you see that in a few months we can solve problems and i think that is something
finally let me take the opportunity to thank not only my colleagues for the great cooperation of the last couple of years but especially commissioner janez potonik.
i think he has done a great job not only for the environment but also and this is something that i would like to emphasise once again for the economy.
we have to understand and commissioner potonik is one of those fighting for this that sustainability might be even more important for the competitiveness of europe than for its environment and that is something that we should never forget.
i hope that he will continue his fight and that not only the commissioner for the environment but also the commissioners for industry and competition understand the economic relevance of sustainability.
mr president honourable members the legislative proposal which is presented to you here today will make a real difference in combating illegal shipments of waste.
after hearing you all coming from all political parties i am convinced that you in the european parliament will confirm and agree to this proposal and i appreciate that.
the commission proposals for making available the reserve fund will provide much needed financing for modernising vessels and upgrading professional qualifications.
in september two thousand and thirteen the commission presented the naiades ii programme to improve the quality of the sector's operating conditions and six key areas of intervention infrastructure environmental performance markets innovation jobs and skills and the integration of the sector into the logistical chain.
for each of the six key areas mentioned the commission has already in its communication specified operational outputs with target dates and identified the actors responsible for their implementation.
i will keep this house informed of progress.
twenty six twenty five billion for transport to be used inter alia to remove bottlenecks and create missing links in the inland waterways network and provide financing for new technologies such as lng.
six three billion are available in the programme for transport and of course support for improving the environmental performance of the fleet will continue after.
the commission is also investigating how to facilitate access to support the inland waterways sector in its future investments and green technologies.
both proposals are under debate in parliament and council. together with the rapporteur the commission is hoping that they will be adopted as quickly as possible.
stronger and well functioning associations and cooperation structures are needed to strengthen the position of these smes and to help them make better use of the available funding from the european union and member states.
much more can be done by the sector to improve cooperation share information and foster integration of inland waterway operators into logistic chains.
the proposal for technical requirements for inland waterway vessels will eliminate the fragmentation of technical standards for inland waterway vessels by creating a single set of standards across europe.
there too the commission will provide support for instance by proposing to open the reserve fund to fund associations representing the sector or by identifying the best practice in cooperation.
in that context it is important that the private sector fully assume its prime role for improving inland navigation.
helping the inland navigation sector also means strengthening its smes which represent eighty of the companies in the sector.
we will of course support the sector in its endeavours.
the connecting europe facility instrument will be used in conjunction with the cohesion funds under which another eur six billion is available for transport.
let me take this opportunity to thank you ms wortmann kool for your very ambitious schedule and the good cooperation on those files.
to conclude the commission has put in place an ambitious programme containing concrete measures with a lasting effect on the sector.
it is regularly following up the implementation with all actors in the naiades implementation group.
however the sector is undergoing difficult times and structural changes are needed to enable inland navigation to fulfil its full potential.
what is more the first steps towards implementation of these measures are already under way.
the parallel technical standards of the different river organisations that generate costs for the sector will become streamlined across the european union.
many of you stressed the word implementation' and have a good strategy for implementation.
the key factors responsible for the crisis such as its fragmentation or its lack of integration into the logistic chains require structural change.
the commission is convinced that the inland waterways sector is an important element of a well functioning safe and green transport system. with naiades ii we are creating the conditions to fully realise this potential and thus to contribute to growth and employment in the european union. the commission takes the task to revitalise this sector
i share the views of my colleagues that despite the interesting proposals included in the communication a clearer and more comprehensive global strategy is still needed.
certainly that needs to be encouraged.
it says for instance that based on the current state of technology lng fuel ships would considerably contribute to achieving emission limits for the more ambitious approach.
these are obviously mainly on continental europe and it is only right that because they have suffered due to the economic recession there is now an opportunity to develop. therefore we should be helping them to connect and develop in every way. most of these are either privately owned or owned by smes and often they are not in a position to be aware of the resources that the european union can offer.
i would like to see an overall package incorporating cargo and leisure as the final result here.
there is a great need to fund local communities which want to redevelop walkways and pathways associated with inland waters.
madam president the use of canals in the uk for transporting goods has almost died out with the exception of course of the manchester ship canal.
i am always defending regional national and european freight transport strategies that encourage a modal shift from road to more sustainable modes of transport such as rail and inland waterways.