kfajdsl/voxpopuli huggingface dataset:
acknowledging that this area is a member state competence i can only repeat my calls for my country to increase investment in the public education system reform it to better match economic and social challenges and be more supportive towards the disadvantaged.
without reassuringly dealing with our gaps in the education system there can be no proper foundation for future economic growth competitiveness or social development.
how can we achieve this in practice?
the second element is trust.
member states have to converge and they have to converge towards the level of the strongest and most competitive members.
firstly the implementation of structural reforms as outlined in the countryspecific recommendations is essential.
as i understand it i only have thirty seconds which means that i am not able to answer your question as we really have a huge number of problems here.
we felt that the general message that if only we follow the growth and stability pact all will be well fails to give some real weight to the need to ensure we have balance between the economic development that we need and the social dimension of our considerations given that we want to improve the quality of life and future prospects for many people within the european union.
and it is not just i think a question as has been said earlier about the pursuit of growth.
it is a lot as well about its distribution whether it is inclusive whether it is actually reducing those gaps that we have as well of course as its environmental effect.
we welcome the progress made on achieving a better balance between the economic and social dimensions. it is something that this parliament has pushed for from the very start of this process. but we still want to assert that employment and economic indicators have to be on an equal footing because this triggers an in depth analysis and the corrective action that is necessary in relative member states.
there is certainly a need for corrective action if we are to tackle the gross inequalities that still exist in too many places inequality of income inequality of opportunity and too much of that lack of opportunity is still based on social class and discrimination.
and some of us in this house in fact i feel a majority still think it is shocking that we actually have a gender pay gap and that so many people are unable to use their talents because of discrimination.
so we need to reduce those gaps to ensure that our social security systems can meet the needs of changing societies and our changing work patterns and provide a genuine work life balance.
we need to provide relevant lifelong learning not least in stem and digital skills so that people can find new employment in decent jobs that pay a living wage.
and we still have too many people in poverty even if they are in work.
so we really do need to take seriously the question about adequate minimum income schemes at whatever stage of life you are in.
as we have also been hearing we still have far too many children disadvantaged from the very beginning of their lives and we do need to deliver on the child guarantee.
and we also need to deliver on decent housing.
this is an investment it provides jobs it provides social stability better health and an important basis from which those that can find work can do so.
and we would certainly agree about the engagement of stakeholders being crucial and this is something which member states have yet to really improve.
first of all we need to recognise that the growth is uneven it is different in the different member states which is why at the same time it is interesting and important to look at the aggregated development of the economy. we need too to recognise the different situations in different member states and that requires
we need to secure a responsible fiscal policy creating certainty and stability.
by that i mean qualitative budgeting allowing for investments but also allowing for and securing the stability of our economies.
and we need to ensure that we follow the rules.
following the rules entails two different dimensions first of all it opens the way for the positive fiscal stance the commission is talking about and it also ensures that the rules of the stability pact must be respected because if they are not respected we will undermine the stability and the credibility of the european economy.
i think there are some main conclusions from these debates. first of all we must not be complacent about what has been achieved.
unemployment is still far too high.
investments are still far too small and growth is far too slow.
we need to do more.
the aggregated level is important to see but it is important to see also the different developments in different countries because there we can see that different policies have been giving different results.
we have countries with quite better growth and we have those who are lagging behind.
we have those who have dealt with the deficits and we have those who are still suffering from the deficits.
so learning is important and that is why the country specific recommendations are important to discuss and to follow up on.
and i think some of the most important issues are the need to go ahead with structural reforms to consolidate but also when you have a positive fiscal stance to do it in the framework of the stability pact and the limits we have there.
may we also remember that the main social issue we have to address is the emergence of new jobs stability and a qualitative budgeting that is ensuring that we are giving priority to the most important task we have in the public spending and in our welfare nations the security for people to know that you can get a job.
that requires reforms stability and certainty and that is the framework for the country specific recommendations that we need to have.
and indeed we have grounds for that because the euro area has been growing at least. but let me tell you that there is no room for complacency because there are a number of trends that in the past supported the recovery but right now they are weakened or even disappearing.
the problem with investment is that not only is public investment lagging behind a long term trend but also what is most important private investment is not picking up at least not to the extent expected.
this calls clearly for more structural reforms aimed at improving the business climate and increasing the confidence of investors and consumers and these are mostly tasks for individual member states.
the alde group will support this report tomorrow.
we are in favour of creating a real single market pillar within the european semester and this must be strengthened.
we must say no to attempts to divide the single market and work instead to encourage measures that will lead to growth.
the alde group also believes that evaluation of the state of single market integration should become an integral part of the economic government framework.
i would support an official report on this topic so that we do not have to rely solely on outside studies.
therefore i welcome that this house now considers taking a positive fiscal stance as an important political development.
it may have taken us years to convince colleagues on the right on the need for more public investment but i am glad we have got there given the challenges that lie ahead for everyone.
it is good that the eu is experiencing green shoots of growth but that should not make us complacent.
the growth needs to be sustained by four points.
future basel reforms have to be mindful of the impact on the real economy.
it is good that unemployment is reducing but we need to make a greater impact on youth unemployment and the council and the member states need to take seriously tackling tax evasion which will bring back billions into the european economy.
this can extend to using interesting techniques to persuade the relevant authorities to harass and intimidate such entrepreneurs in an attempt to force them out of business.
on the other hand we have those individuals who use parallel trading as a front to place counterfeit agrichemicals on the market.
on the one hand we have large corporations doing everything they can to stop entrepreneurs legally taking advantage of parallel trading.
these may well be sub standard causing serious problems for the purchaser and the undermining of confidence in the product in general.
a case in my constituency recently witnessed the health and safety executive raiding the premises of a parallel trader and confiscating the family photograph album of the managing director as evidence for wrongdoing.
carnegie's legacy can be found across the globe.
that is why i have launched my campaign for open knowledge to ensure improved and fair access to e books in public libraries.
he believed that by empowering people through giving them free access to knowledge he could transform lives just as his life was transformed by having free access to a library in his youth.
if we want to future proof libraries today we have to take action across the european union to ensure that libraries are not left behind in the new digital world in which we exist.
to the unemployed victims of the austerity policies and the system defended by the political establishment it is saying it is your fault that you are unemployed.
enda kenny has denounced a non existent welfare culture and a labour td defended the cuts by saying that young people should not be permanently in front of flat screen tvs.
it is your fault because you are lazy because you do not have enough motivation because you do not have enough training or enough education.
young people have to mobilise to defend their rights and to declare we are not leaving.
this economic war is accompanied by an ideological war a demonisation of those who are unemployed.
such a bill would provide all citizens with a practical tool they can use to hold public authorities to account to challenge and ultimately to end discrimination inequality and social injustice.
mr president any impartial observer would agree that routine and systematic violations of human rights were both the causes and the consequences of the conflict in ireland.
therefore a robust bill of rights containing permanent legal safeguards is needed to act as insurance against a repeat of past wrongs to halt the wrongs of the present and to prevent new wrongs in the future.
in those ten years he has gone from being russia's most successful businessman to being its most prominent political prisoner.
he was jailed on politically motivated charges because he financed an opposition party. but he worked for a vibrant civil society he denounced corruption and he nurtured democratic politics.
today civil society is harassed and intimidated corruption is rampant and political parties are silenced.
russia needs reform.
it needs enlightenment.
it needs a change of direction.
it needs men and women like mikhail khodorkovsky to bring the country towards its true place in europe.
he should be released from prison immediately.
we have always known that you are brave men now we can also say that you are prudent men.
the first world war may not have been the first industrial war nor was it the first global war or even the first civilian war but it was all of those things on a previously unimaginable scale.
it touched factory workers in australia.
but even now it is possible that some countries still refuse to learn the lessons.
so i would like to pay tribute to them today for the work that they have done. the first world war was in the words of fritz stern the first calamity of the twentieth century the calamity from which all other calamities sprang.
i think of the first black soldier to command white soldiers in the british army a man called walter tull.
politicians are all too easily and frequently criticised as mr farage is finding out in the british press this morning but i believe there is nothing more noble or honourable than devoting a life to public service and seeking to create a better world through robust democratic argument and debate about ideals sincerely held
ordinary people putting their differences aside and meeting on the football pitch in no man's land instead.
but as we reflect on the horror of the first world war we can also in my view take inspiration from some of the individuals who in tragic circumstances pointed to a better world.
i am thinking of people like edith cavell the nurse who helped soldiers on all sides and was eventually executed for helping a group of allied soldiers to escape.
each of those fifty four thousand had a mother a father many of them a wife and many of them children.
and since the chain of events that began in sarajevo one hundred years ago we have learnt that when we have differences we can find peaceful ways of resolving them.
in one thousand nine hundred and fourteen it was not clear what the democratic world wanted what it would accept and what it expected of others and what it was prepared to do to defend those ideals.
it is hard to comprehend now the full impact of that war on society in those days but behind all the numbers of course are the human stories.
it is one of the greatest achievements of western civilisation that must never be taken for granted.
they try to get what they want by force by threats by creating a false sense of grievance to whip up domestic opinion and to provide a pretext for military action. tactics that we had hoped never to see again deployed in our continent are being used right now just beyond the frontiers of some of our member states.
even if they are not necessarily ideals which i hold.
history does not recall who won that game but i am sure the germans won on penalties! as we head into an election campaign where all of us will be straining to highlight every difference and to demonstrate all of our divisions events like this actually serve as a useful reminder to all of us that sometimes what unites us far outweighs what divides us.
these are mistakes that we must not repeat again.
whilst we have many political differences which i am sure we will continue to argue about in future forums on future occasions i think i would like first of all to put those aside today to express my respect for their work and for their contributions to life in this chamber.
she became an inspiration for women's rights.
the sheer cost in terms of human sacrifice mean we should be obliged to remember in our private thoughts in our public words all those who gave up so much in that struggle their lives their health their families their property their way of life.
he was only the second black professional footballer in the entire english league which of course reminds me of the famous story of the one thousand nine hundred and fourteen christmas day truce that perhaps best sums up how humanity can shine through even the darkest days.
an action that would seem normal to us today was truly revolutionary in those times and helped take some of the first tentative steps towards a new era of equality.
its impact and reach were of a new magnitude looking at the numbers of dead the casualty rates the fifty four thousand soldiers remembered at the menin gate at ypres whose bodies have never been discovered.
the first world war touched farming families in india;
the first world war shaped our modern world today and in many respects we are still living in its shadow.
so i have to say that i believe the whole european project is based on a falsehood.
i believe the european elections this year will mark a turning point.
it. i am not against europe but i am against this europe.
i have heard people this morning talking about the need for a united states of europe on a federal model.
the whole european project comes from the disaster that was sparked by the first world war. it is entirely understandable that people should have sought ways to prevent such awfulness.
you can only have that if people give consent for it and nobody has done so. when the eu put the constitution to the peoples of europe the first time it really came clean with the electors they rejected
it led to horrific wars from one thousand nine hundred and ninety and the deaths of tens of thousands of people as they fought to get out of a false state. the european union is making a very similar mistake because there is no consent for this project.
the difficulty is that they chose the wrong target.
i want a europe of independent sovereign nation states that trade together work together and cooperate together.
actually what we should have focused on post one thousand nine hundred and forty five was not the abolition of states but making sure that the european states were democratic because democratic nation states do not go to war with each other.
european values. today's nationalism has its roots in the europe of today. nationalism grows on the basis of unacceptably high unemployment especially for the young. it grows because of a rising gap between the rich and the poor. because of these social imbalances inside europe the nationalists can play their dirty blame game against migrants. instead of helping them they
world war. new divisions between east and west and north and south are being created and heightened instead of mitigated. take the labour market in europe. new obstacles are constructed by some of our citizens and new hate filled prejudices are voiced for example against the people of romania
finden konnten. but today dear colleagues can we really say that we have learned our lessons from the war which started almost one hundred years ago? new nationalist groups and parties built on hatred and xenophobia are rising and many sleepwalkers as christopher clark describes them in his outstanding book on world war one are ignoring the dangers of this new nationalism. unfortunately these groups enjoy growing support because the europe of today is in many ways failing to fulfil the promises politicians gave after the second
mr president i was very pleased to have an opportunity to support this report.
first of all we must ensure the sustainable management of water and it must always remain a public good.
finally i would like to mention paragraphs fifty nine and sixty where we overwhelmingly about ninety eight expressed our concern regarding the forest code that will exacerbate deforestation in the amazonian forest. as we do this our commissioner mr de gucht is still pushing ahead for a mercosur deal including the implications of the significant amounts of
i fully support the call to ensure that the right to water and sanitation is globally achieved.
so one arm of the european institutions is expressing one view and the other arm is completely ignoring it.
yes the resolution also says that we need to make changes and we can improve the functioning of the fund.
we certainly can improve its timeliness and look at its cofinancing rates.
we also need to ensure that the fund responds properly to the needs of workers but also deals with issues like skill mismatches.
in the debate this morning there were some issues about absolving businesses of their responsibilities.
finally we await the commission mid term evaluation of the fund in november and the commission proposals in october but from what i know of what is contained in the commission proposals i have to say i welcome them in particular their proposal to include farmers and the self employed within the fund.
this goes completely off the chart. two questions immediately arise.
ultimately the loan is supposed to be guaranteed by the european central bank but the ecb has been buying what is normally classified as junk debt from various eurozone countries to the extent that it is in effect already a bad bank.
so when we talk about the guarantors we really mean the taxpayers including the taxpayers of spain italy ireland portugal and greece. second question from whom are we going to borrow? if somebody had two trillion euros lying around do you not think they would have used it by now given the circumstances of the past three years? the truth is we are borrowing from future generations.
we are freighting future generations with an unprecedented level of debt.
prevent it resist it let it not be so lest child child's children cry against you woe!
so much modern crime is by its very nature transnational and we cannot underestimate the value of being able to coordinate police and judicial processes across the twenty eight member states in order to ensure rapid surrendering of suspects when necessary. however the scheme is far from perfect.
other proposals such as the right of refusal on human rights grounds standardised consultation procedures legal remedies such as the need for habeas corpus and regular reviews all appear to me to be sensible methods of improving and harmonising a system which has brought some value to the tackling of crime throughout the european union.
mr president smoking contributes to nearly seven hundred thousand deaths a year in europe and of course i welcome the vast majority of the tobacco products directive report and support its aims in seeking to dissuade people from smoking. increased health warnings are included on the packaging which is a good thing.
e cigarettes have not become an addition to the tobacco market but rather a tool for those in the process of quitting or a preferable compromise for those that have not been able to quit.
there is still much scientific research to be conducted regarding e cigarettes but everyone agrees that their effects are far less damaging than cigarettes and probably better than nicotine patches or nicotine chewing gum. certainly while cigarettes have killed millions worldwide including in my constituency of london no single death to my knowledge has ever been attributed to the use of their electronic equivalent.
it is therefore very disappointing that there has been such an insistence to include measures that will all but ban e cigarettes illustrating a complete lack of understanding of their harm reduction strategy and usage.
mr nbsp president drones have received much adverse publicity recently with regard to their targeted use in the fight against international terrorism particularly in afghanistan and pakistan.
with that in mind i would reaffirm that one of the underlying considerations in any military operation is to limit civilian casualties and military casualties on one's own side as far as possible.
however as a member for london in the united kingdom i was reminded of the value of our non participation when reading certain parts of the report. it notes that a policy of full visa reciprocity should be pursued and of course i generally support this idea from an eu perspective in as much as we should under no circumstances offer visa free travel to third countries of similar per capita income that do not offer the same guarantee.
this should not however dissuade the eu from seeking advantageous agreements with third countries particularly in cases where there is a large disparity in the migratory push and pull factors between the third country and the union.
but we cannot ignore the economic realities and benefits that would be brought to both parties in such a circumstance.
finally as a longstanding friend of ukraine armenia and georgia i would like to add my support to the visa facilitation direction of travel policy that is being pursued for the eastern neighbourhood.
but we have to be very careful on a matter which is incredibly sensitive and my country for the time being remains out of the schengen area.
what struck me the most was how quickly public figures and politicians declined any responsibility when instead they should have reacted fiercely against breivik's ideology an ideology that is anti islamic anti migration against a multicultural and diverse society
breivik was in fact acting against the backdrop of a narrative which is becoming more and more common.
we cannot turn a blind eye to an act of violence like this.
he is also the product of a society of a movement and of a whole community of activists chatters and bloggers who despise and reject all societies.
i think that we have to repeat and to remember the words of former president clinton in his speech on the fifteen year commemoration of the oklahoma bombing.