Corrections to votes and voting intentions: see Minutes


11. Israeli military operation against the humanitarian flotilla and the Gaza blockade (
- Before the vote
Mr President, by way of protest, the ECR Group will not be voting for the joint resolution. We are voting against it because the ALDE coordinators organising the joint motion did not bother to invite our ECR Group to participate in the negotiations, on the presumption that we would not sign the joint text.
In all my 11 years as an MEP I have never experienced this before. This is against all the conventions and traditions of this House and must not happen again. Because of the order of voting, we will not even have a chance to vote on our own resolution.
Mr Tannock, let me just point out that what you have just said was more appropriately slated for the explanation of votes section of the sitting, but thank you.


Approval of Minutes of previous sitting
The Minutes of the sitting of 26 October 2006 have been distributed. Does anyone wish to comment on them?
(FR) Mr President, I would just like to point out that on Thursday I forgot to sign the attendance sheet However, I participated in all the roll-call votes at noon on Thursday and on Thursday evening.
Appropriate steps will be taken to make the necessary correction.
(The Minutes of the previous sitting were approved)


Forwarding of texts adopted during the sitting: see Minutes


Pharmaceutical products package (debate)
The next item is the Commission statement on the pharmaceutical products package.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the proposals in the so-called pharmaceutical package which I am presenting this evening at Parliament's request have a common theme. The intention of the package is to strengthen the rights, needs and interests of patients in our healthcare systems.
In our view patients are not merely the subject of services available from healthcare providers or the subject of the financial interests of the pharmaceutical industry. Patients are responsible citizens whose health is their most important asset and who are entitled to have the best and safest treatments and medicines at their disposal. Patients are the subject of healthcare policy.
However, health or restoration to health is not just a right. It also involves an obligation to take care of oneself by eating healthily, having a healthy lifestyle and playing an active role in one's own treatment, if treatment is required.
Our proposal for more effective monitoring of the actual effects of approved medicines, for example, presupposes this type of active involvement on the part of patients. If patients do not notify the authorities about anomalies relating to medicines that they have taken, the monitoring process will be a waste of time.
This also applies to protection against counterfeit medicines. Patients can, and should, in future ensure that they are not taking fake medicines by checking that all the safety features which will be required on future packaging are in fact in place. If we believe that active, informed patients play an essential role in healthcare, in monitoring medicines and in preventing the spread of counterfeits, it is hard to understand why patients are not allowed access to information about the most important medicines. For this reason, the pharmaceutical package consists of the following four parts: a political communication and three legislative proposals on the safety monitoring of medicines, on counterfeit medicines and on patient information.
The rapidly growing numbers of fake medicines have forced us to act. The number of counterfeit medicines confiscated at the EU's external borders increased almost fourfold between 2005 and 2007. If we do not act now, the first deaths will be caused sooner or later. The problem has also affected the legal supply chain for medicines. We have discovered fake medicines at different stages of the supply chain. Each individual case involves thousands of packages and, therefore, thousands of patients are potentially at risk. In future, patients in Europe must be able to have total confidence in the quality of the medicines which they obtain from legal suppliers, such as pharmacies.
Our proposals are therefore as follows: firstly, clear regulations for all those involved in the legal supply chain; secondly, stricter supervision of medicines in transit or for export; thirdly, the latest safety features on medicines which are particularly at risk, including a seal, an identification feature and a barcode to ensure complete traceability for every package; and, fourthly, regulations for the safety monitoring of active substances.
While the proposal was being drawn up, a misunderstanding arose which I would like to clear up once and for all. The proposal's sole objective is to improve patient safety. It is not intended to prevent a specific form of medicine distribution, such as parallel trade. The sector in question has been responsible for a striking information campaign. In this case you could almost call it a disinformation campaign. However, I would like to clarify once again that the parallel trade in medicines is an activity which is permitted under the EU Treaty and will remain so. Parallel traders simply need to observe the new safety requirements, as do all other participants in the supply chain. No one is being given preferential treatment and no one is being put at a disadvantage.
The legislative proposal on pharmacovigilance, in other words on monitoring approved medicines, will improve patient safety and reduce the unnecessary administrative burden. This is a good example of how less bureaucracy can lead to greater safety. This will be achieved by making responsibilities clearer and reporting obligations more effective. In addition, manufacturers must introduce an efficient monitoring system. Community-wide access to information about undesirable or previously unknown side effects will make Community-wide risk management significantly easier.
Finally, the pharmaceutical package includes a proposal for improved patient information. I know that this is a highly controversial issue which we have often considered in this Parliament and I hope that we will succeed in discussing this issue calmly and objectively and without resorting to polemics.
Patients have a right to information and this applies in particular to medicines. Health is one of our most important assets, if not the most important. The significance of health will continue to increase in our aging society. In a democratic society, it therefore goes without saying that patients must be provided with comprehensive information about matters which affect their health.
I must state very clearly, and this really is a fundamental principle of a democratic society, that we do not need to explain and justify the fact that people should be provided with information. Instead, we need to explain and justify the situation when citizens are not provided with information.
Patients are already actively searching for information. All of us will have come across this situation among our friends, acquaintances or even family members, when a seriously ill person or their relatives and friends search desperately, and in many cases these people really are desperate, for information about whether a better medicine or a better treatment is available.
The first place that these people look is the Internet. They come across information from other parts of the world and are not able to tell whether it is product advertising or factual information. In my opinion this situation is both dreadful and intolerable.
I would therefore like to make it absolutely clear that the current situation does not meet patients' requirements for high-quality information. It also results in discrimination. People who can understand English and can use the Internet have access to information which is unavailable to those people who cannot understand English and cannot use the Internet. These are generally older people and it is particularly important for them to obtain factual information.
As things currently stand in Europe, if a medicine is American, then the information is available, and if it is European, the information is not available. Our considerations are based on the fact that the ban on advertising prescription-only medicines should under no circumstances be relaxed and that there is a significant difference between information and advertising. Our proposal is therefore that certain information should be released and, in particular, the information which has been reviewed by the authorities and can be found, for example, on the package leaflets of medicines. Secondly, this information should only be published on the Internet in written answers to specific questions or in healthcare publications specified by the Member States.
Thirdly, strict quality criteria must be followed and, fourthly, the Member States must put in place effective monitoring mechanisms. The information must be monitored before publication. Exceptions to this will only be permitted in the context of effective systems.
I would like to explain that there is, of course, a grey area relating to patient information and advertising for medical products. Individual patients are not able to see through this grey area in which information of all kinds is made available via media of all kinds, with the media taking editorial responsibility. Very often this information is controlled by interested parties, to put it cautiously, and readers are not able to identify the source of the information or the interested party involved.
I will be working with the media and with the pharmaceutical industry to draw up a code of conduct in order to ensure that this highly questionable practice is brought to an end. However, to achieve this we need to find a better and more modern solution to the problem of patient information.
This package contains very up-to-date and progressive proposals. It draws the obvious conclusions from the increasing importance which citizens place on questions that concern their own health. I hope that I will have the support of the European Parliament for this package. Thank you very much.
on behalf of the PPE-DE Group. - Madam President, I very much welcome the Commissioner's statement and in particular the tone in which he opened it when he was referring to patients as being the centre of this. I am just taking through this Parliament a report on cross-border health, and fundamental to that is the safety of patients. If I may say so, I wish this had come sooner so that we could have completed your package, along with other health measures within this Parliament. That is not going to be possible, but at least we are on the road.
Perhaps you could mention to at least one of your colleagues that we would also like to see something on needle-stick injuries as part of that safety package.
But we are looking now at the three items that you have referred to. You have referred, rightly, to information to patients and you have dwelt on the detail of that. I believe that patients, and particularly the patients with conditions like neurodegenerative diseases, are very anxious to see this information to patients coming in in a way which is certainly not advertising but does give them confidence that what they read - whether it is on the internet, in the package or in advertising or announcements, shall we say - is bona fide and trustworthy. At the moment they cannot do that and so they are, as you say, at risk.
The second one is counterfeiting. Counterfeiting is one of the curses of our age. It is one thing to have a watch or designer clothing counterfeited, but it is far more serious if it is a medicine. If it is a counterfeit medicine, then patients are at risk and patients can die because of counterfeit medicines. As we have heard, the statistics - 2.5 million packages a year seized at EU borders - have greatly increased over the previous two years, from 2005-2007, and the frightening thing is that it is increasingly within pharmacies and it is not just the internet packages.
Thirdly, you referred to pharmacovigilance. We reckon that 5% of all hospital admissions are the result of adverse drug reactions and that adverse drug reactions cause a fifth of the unnecessary deaths in hospitals. So it is vitally important that we have a simplified, more reliable package on pharmacovigilance too.
If we get these in place, then I believe my report and the safety of patients can go hand in hand, and that must be at the top of our agenda tonight, during the rest of this Parliament and in the Parliament that is to come at the end of the summer.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it is good that we are discussing a new piece of pharmaceutical legislation this evening. I would also like to thank Commissioner Verheugen for providing us with this opportunity.
Commissioner Verheugen has rightly raised the fact that a number of amendments to the legislation are necessary. We need a greater focus on safety, better rules concerning information for patients and effective measures against counterfeit medicines. I would also stress the point that the patient must play the central role in this regard.
Medicines are subject to strict supervision, which is why it is not possible to put any old thing on the market. Strict tests are carried out on medicines before they reach the market, but once they are on the market it is extremely rare for them to be tested again. Supervision of a medicine is limited once it reaches the market. Side effects are reported, but there is little research into the effectiveness of medicines. The proposed legislation gives us an opportunity to make very necessary improvements on this front.
For example, cholesterol-lowering medication is taken on a mass scale, although little is known about the effectiveness of various products and very little, indeed, is known about which product is the most effective. The same applies to antidepressants and other drugs which have an impact on people's mental health. It would be a good idea if the pharmaceutical industry were required to undertake more extensive research into the effectiveness and side effects of its products. Independent testing is necessary in this regard.
We all know that patient information about medicines is a controversial topic. Anyone watching prime-time television in the United States can see what trouble this can cause. 'Ask your doctor for x medicine for breast cancer or y medicine for cystitis.' So far, there has been a ban on the advertising of medicines in Europe and, as far as I am concerned, that is how it should remain. We cannot allow anyone to saddle us with a diagnosis or talk us into taking a drug.
The pharmaceutical industry wants to inform patients about its products and thinks that it is the body most capable of doing that. I imagine that that might very well be the case, but independent testing is crucial here, too. The legislative proposal relaxes the rules on the circulation of information via the Internet and printed media. As Commissioner Verheugen himself says, this is a modern and progressive proposal. There must be a very clear dividing line between information and advertising and patients should have the right to reliable information. For this reason, it would be a good idea to collect information in a European database, together with comparative information on the effects and side effects of medicines.
The third proposal in the package tightens the rules intended to prevent counterfeit medicines from being placed on the market. That is only right, because, as my fellow Member Mr Bowis has stressed, placing counterfeit medicines on the market is a serious offence. Commissioner Verheugen is also right in saying that this phenomenon is not so much a consequence of parallel trade as of altogether different mechanisms which we need to tackle. In the upcoming period we should deepen our discussion about the advantages and disadvantages of information for patients, counterfeit medicines and patient safety, because it is certain that we are dealing with a number of public duties here. The industry has a responsibility, patients have a certain amount of responsibility, but so do the authorities as well.
Madam President, I would like to thank the Commission for its statement. I think that it is good to address environmental aspects, for example. Contamination from pharmaceutical products is a growing problem in treatment works.
As regards advertisements for pharmaceutical products, I would like to see the toughest possible restrictions. I have really become quite tired of this issue. One evening when I was watching television, a quarter of all the advertisements were for over-the-counter pharmaceutical products. I would like the Commission to carry out an impact assessment to see how great an effect the advertisements have had on sales of these pharmaceutical products. Is it reasonable to have so many advertisements for pharmaceutical products on the television, even if we are talking about over-the-counter medicines?
In Sweden, we had an example of the vaccine Gardasil, which scarcely falls within the bounds of over-the-counter or epidemiological vaccines. I would therefore like us to tighten up the legislation in this area.
As regards the counterfeiting of medicines, this is probably also connected to our current patent system. There is an extremely large difference in price. I believe that a solution for better steering research in the direction of needs that are in the public interest would perhaps be to introduce the greater use of prize funds for pharmaceutical products. Neglected tropical diseases, for example - that is to say an area where there is no buying power - would then be able to obtain new medicines. This would better enable research to be carried out into producing medicines for groups in society that do not have a strong buying power.
I would like the Commission to look more closely into the possibilities of making greater use of prize funds, whereby a person who develops a new pharmaceutical product receives a one-off sum. Manufacture would then be licence-free. I believe that in certain cases this could be a better system for improving research and, above all, for eliminating the purpose of counterfeiting medicines. I see many advantages to being able, from a political position, to steer research into solving a disease problem instead of treating the symptoms for 30 years with medication that is very lucrative for the undertakings concerned.
Finally, I would just like to say something about nanotechnology. There are nanoparticles in medicine, but we know very little about their toxicological effects. I would like better methods to be introduced for investigating the toxicology of nanoparticles.
(SK) Many of us will probably talk about healthcare subsidiarity in connection with the pharmaceutical package. Nevertheless, the situation on the pharmaceutical market indicates that, for Europe to be competitive in research and development, as well as in the distribution and sale of new medicines, closer cooperation or improved cooperation between the Member States is required in this field.
Patients need to be better informed about medicines and of course about their unwanted side effects, so that they can participate in treatment more effectively. Due to limited funding for pharmaceutical research and development in Europe, the European pharmaceutical industry is unable to compete with America, Japan or Canada. That is why medicine prices have been rising disproportionately on European markets.
We have discussed repeatedly in the European Parliament the insufficient accessibility of certain drugs, for example those for the treatment of cancer or so-called rare diseases. We place patients who are already in a difficult situation in the position of beggars who have to find sponsors in order to obtain treatment. The high price of many medicines forces the healthcare sector to seek cheaper alternatives, in other words generic medicines. Unfortunately, it is precisely these that are frequently counterfeited and often contain no active substance apart from sugar and the tablet compound.
The aforementioned facts show us how important it is to exchange opinions, discuss and subsequently adopt a complete pharmaceutical package ensuring that patients are treated with high-quality and affordable medicines. In this context, I am looking forward to effective cooperation with the rapporteurs appointed for specific parts of the package in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection. I have to agree with the Commissioner that it is medicines sold via the Internet that greatly endanger the safety of pharmaceutical policy.
(FR) Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it always surprises me when health matters are handled by the Directorate-General for Enterprise and Industry. On reading the proposals on patient information, however, it soon becomes apparent that, one or two nuances aside, they treat medicines as if they were any other consumer product.
On this issue, I believe that information provided by the industry itself, other than labelling and statutory notices, is called advertising and it is by repetition that it becomes a competitive commercial asset.
The Commission may well put forward certain provisions to define its proposals, and it may keep telling us that it is patient associations that are impatiently awaiting such provisions. There are many of us who are not fooled by the impact of this 'patient information' directive and know that it will have no benefit in actually improving the health of Europeans.
We can already be certain that, if the text were to be adopted, the pharmaceutical industry's marketing budget would skyrocket, undoubtedly at the expense of research. Already today, 23% of turnover is dedicated to advertising and only 17% to research, and if we look at the United States and New Zealand, where this advertising information is already permitted, we can see that it has led to an increase in the number of prescriptions and health costs, without any visible improvement in the quality of care or in citizens' health. Let this be a lesson to us.
Finally, I would like to conclude by saying that a modern solution would be to have more faith in health professionals, or to train them better, so that they can provide information on treatments and prescription medicines.
(SV) Madam President, Commissioner Verheugen, as you said, this package was much talked about even before it was tabled. This is perhaps not particularly strange, as pharmaceutical products affect everyone. However, they also affect powerful companies with strong interests as well as the use of tax revenue.
I, personally, asked the Commission to include the effect of pharmaceutical products on the environment in the information provided. I am very pleased that the Commission has included this in its proposal as something that may be included in the information that may be provided. However, I think, in fact, that this information probably could be mandatory when providing information about the pharmaceutical product.
I do not want to see advertisements for prescription pharmaceutical products. I am therefore pleased that the Commission appears to share this view. However, like the Commission, I believe that patients and the general public should have the right to sound and accurate information on pharmaceutical products. In several cases this already exists today. In Sweden, for example, we have a system called FASS. It is important for it to be possible, as an ordinary citizen, to find reliable information quickly, particularly in view of the fact that there is plenty of information that is downright misleading, in particular in various chat rooms on the Internet that are easy to find if someone is in a vulnerable situation. However, just as the Commission has proposed, it is necessary for the information to be monitored objectively so that it can be relied upon. It is this part of the Commission's proposal that I am quite dubious about. It will be extremely important to regulate how these information channels can and should be set up, so that they are easily accessible while at the same time only accessible to those looking for the information, so that the information is not given to people who have not asked for it like an advertisement.
I am also a little dubious about whether it is really necessary to have full regulation of this matter at EU level. When all is said and done, this is an area that relates to health services and medical care and that should fall mostly within the competence of the Member States. I would therefore prefer to be a little more convinced that the legislative regulation of this matter at EU level was really necessary.
(FR) Madam President, I have two questions I would like to put to the Commissioner. Do you intend to find a way to prevent a magazine, distributed free of charge in pharmacies in Germany and subtly funded by the pharmaceutical industry, from being affected by this directive?
My other question relates to the names of medicines in cross-border regions. The names are often different despite the fact that the medicines contain identical substances. Could there not be a way to simplify things for those who live in cross-border regions?
Madam President, I welcome the Commission's statement tonight and look forward to reading in more detail exactly what is in this package.
Some years ago here we had the pharmaceutical review. That included veterinary medicines, as well as human pharmaceuticals. I am just wondering why the two have been divorced at this stage in the proceedings. The Commission will be aware of my interest through the legislation on maximum residues, which feed into the food chain through veterinary pharmaceuticals. I have been critical of serious shortcomings in the Veterinary Medicines Directive now for some time.
Could the Commissioner just comment on drug interaction and multi-drug therapy and drug-resistance issues in relation to this discussion here tonight? I, like others, feel there should be far more patient information now. Patients should not have to 'compete' - if that is the word - with what is on the internet, where there is sometimes a lot of misinformation. They should get properly reviewed scientific information at first hand with their medicines.
Finally, I also have concerns with the role of drug companies in influencing doctors' prescription habits. Could the Commissioner comment, please?
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, in response to Mrs Corbey's comments, I would like to say first of all that I gave the go-ahead for a European database of prescription-only medicines several years ago. Work on the database is going well and it will be available in the foreseeable future.
Not only Mrs Corbey but also several other Members of this House have asked the question: is it possible to make a clear distinction between information and advertising? Let me state clearly once again that the Commission is totally opposed to allowing advertising or publicity, or whatever you want to call it, for prescription-only medicines in Europe. We will not permit this under any circumstances. However, I do also have to contradict you when you give the impression that there is no difference between information and advertising. Anyone who says that it is not possible to distinguish between information and advertising is insulting hundreds of thousands of journalists who clearly demonstrate every day in their work in newspapers, on the radio or on television that there is a difference between information and advertising. The regulations which we draw up are so accurate and so precise that there is no question of blurring the lines between information and advertising. The information must be based on data that has already been authorised by the approval authority. It must be authorised before it is published and it is subject to strict quality controls. I really do not understand how anyone could believe that this was advertising.
Mr Schlyter has highlighted the question of vaccines. I must state clearly at this point that vaccines are, of course, not freely available. Vaccines are normally made available to ordinary citizens by the public health authorities in the context of information campaigns which aim to ensure the highest possible vaccination density. That is how things should be, but the difference between information and advertising must, of course, also be taken into account in the case of vaccines. I fully share your opinion in this respect. The issue of counterfeit medicines is unrelated to intellectual property. Fake medicines are not produced as a result of a dispute about intellectual property. The medicines which are being faked have already been approved, which means that any issues of intellectual property have been resolved. Counterfeit medicines are produced for reasons of pure greed. There is no question of violating rights to intellectual property. This is simply a criminal act. At the very least faking medicines involves bodily harm, if not attempted murder, but it has nothing to do with questions of intellectual property.
I would like to draw your attention to statistics produced by the European Medicines Agency which has been investigating the possible effects of improved patient information. In Great Britain, 5% of all the people who are admitted to hospital are there because they have taken the wrong medicine, in other words, a medicine which they are allergic to or which they should not have been given. Of all the patients in hospital in Great Britain, 5% have been hospitalised because they have taken the wrong medicine. We know that in 50% of these cases this could have been avoided if the patient had been informed about the nature of the medicine they received. However, this information was not available to them. I also use this argument in reply to healthcare authorities in the Member States who are not enthusiastic about the prospect of well-informed patients because they believe that well-informed patients are demanding and will ask for more expensive drugs. These statistics show that patient information can even save money.
In answer to Mrs Hennicot-Schoepges' question about brochures and magazines which are made available free of charge, I do not think that it is possible for European legislators to prevent anyone from distributing free brochures. This happens in several Member States. However, the ban on advertising also applies to these magazines and brochures. I am thinking, for example, of the very well-known publication Apothekenumschau in my native country. These publications are not allowed to contain advertising for prescription-only medicines.
I have said something about the grey area, in other words, the surreptitious advertising which you also mentioned. Yes, it does exist. We are familiar with these practices and our proposals are specifically intended to prevent this surreptitious advertising which is found in a number of areas.
As far as the border regions are concerned, the circumstances described are related to the fact that we still essentially have national approval of drugs. European approval is the exception, not the rule. This means that manufacturers have their medicines approved in the different markets in the Member States and no one can prevent them from registering the medicines under different names. This is where the problem lies. If a medicine has European approval, then it is available throughout Europe, including the border regions, under the same brand name.
Mrs Doyle, I do not believe that there is a one-to-one correspondence in the areas which we are discussing between human medicine and veterinary medicine. I think the structures are very different in these cases. For example, animals are not able to find out about medicines themselves. The relationship between demand and availability is quite different. However, I will be very happy to consider this problem further. I would also like to point out that in the case of the question of residues we issued a proposal a long time ago, as you know.
The debate is closed.


Opening of the sitting
(The sitting was opened at 9 a.m.)


Approval of the minutes of the previous sitting : see Minutes


10. The work of the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly in 2008 (


1. 2007 discharge: EU general budget - Council (
Before the vote:
Mr President, I rise under Rule 173, regarding Rule 2 of the Rules of Procedure. I quote: 'Members of the European Parliament shall exercise their mandate independently'. At the debate on the Council and Commission statements this morning, you, Mr President, said that Mr Farage's remarks were unacceptable. As a new Member of this House, I would like you to clarify, with respect to Rule 2, whether a Member of this House is free to express his or her opinions without any censorship.
With your permission, I will have a meeting with Mr Farage and we shall have a friendly talk about it. That is what I propose. Thank you very much.
(DE) Mr President, I also took part in the debate this morning. I did not have the impression that you were unfair or abused your office in any way. On the contrary...
(Uproar)
I would like to say, on the contrary, that you listened with great patience and respect as the chairman of this so-called group demonstrated to us that he is a professional slanderer. That was the reality of Mr Farage's speech.
(Applause)
rapporteur. - Mr President, I would like to request a roll-call vote on the discharge of the Council's budget 2007. I think that it is important that the Council can see the broad support from this Parliament behind our demands to the Council on more cooperation with Parliament and its competent committees on the next discharge procedure.


Community Tobacco Fund (debate)
The next item is the report by Mr Berlato, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council regulation amending Regulation (EC) No 1782/2003 as regards the transfer of tobacco aid to the Community Tobacco Fund for the years 2008 and 2009 and Regulation (EC) No 1234/2007 with regard to financing of the Community Tobacco Fund - C6-0062/2008 -.
rapporteur. - (IT) Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the aim of the Commission proposal is basically to continue deducting 5% of the tobacco aid granted for the calendar years 2008 and 2009 and to use those funds to continue financing the Community Tobacco Fund, whose sole purpose is to finance information initiatives for improving European citizens' awareness of the harmful effects of tobacco consumption.
First of all, I think it would be appropriate to highlight a few objective terms of reference. The transfer of CAP aid to the Fund is a rare and positive example of integration and cooperation between the agriculture and health policies of the European Union. Since the activities of the Fund are important for the citizens of the Union, and will continue to be important in the future, as the Commission has underlined, we consider that its continued financial support is necessary for 2007 and for 2009.
The deduction from coupled aid granted to farmers has always been the sole source of financing of the Community Tobacco Fund. The financial basis of this deduction was substantially reduced with the reform of the tobacco CMO and by the decision of some Member States to opt for complete decoupling, thereby completely depriving the Fund of the income from those deductions. It is necessary, by further extending the period of application of the deduction and by increasing its percentage rate, to make sufficient resources available from the Fund to finance programmes without impacting further on the EU budget, at least until the end of the current forecasts, while at the same time seeking other ways of financing the Fund.
One of the positive aspects of the Fund's financing mechanism is the provision for at least 25% of the total amount of approved projects to be co-financed by proven operators, thus guaranteeing the availability of increased funding. The Committee on Agriculture has frequently considered these questions and maintains its own line, which is to tighten restrictions on smoking and to improve people's awareness of its harmful effect on human health.
On the other hand, we are fully aware, as stated in Parliament's legislative resolution of 10 March 2004, that European raw tobacco production, which is now low and concentrated in a few, specific areas of the Union, accounts for less than 4% of world production and has no impact on local consumption of tobacco products.
Although this topic is not central to today's debate, it is worth remembering that the European Union is the world's leading importer of raw tobacco and relies for over 70% of its requirements on third countries - principally Brazil, Malawi, Argentina, Indonesia, Zimbabwe, India and China - to the advantage of tobaccos often produced under less closely regulated conditions than European tobacco. This also results in a trade deficit of over EUR 1.2 billion per annum.
On the other hand, Member States where tobacco aid has been completely decoupled have seen, besides the cancellation of transfers to the Fund, the total abandonment of production, without any sustainable alternative in economic or employment terms. This has had very serious adverse effects on the rural areas concerned as a whole and has not led to any change in the local consumption of finished tobacco products.
As regards the proposal to make a deduction in the aid for the calendar year 2008, and bearing in mind that the tobacco cultivation contracts for the 2008 harvest year were concluded some time ago, the Committee on Agriculture considers that approving that proposal could give rise to a whole series of legal actions or, at any event, to a dispute which would ultimately cause serious harm to farmers alone.
Finally, the Committee on Agriculture considers that, by extending the deduction until the harvest year 2012 and increasing the percentage rate of the deduction for the Fund to 6%, there would be enough money to cover actions under the Community Tobacco Fund until the year 2013, and it calls on the Commission to prepare a multiannual programme which, suitably altered in accordance with the amendments proposed here, could draw on EUR 81 million without impacting further on the Union's budget.
Member of the Commission. - Madam President, first of all I want to thank the rapporteur, Mr Berlato. I was very encouraged by the enthusiasm with which you made your speech tonight. I also wish to thank the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development for the report on the Community Tobacco Fund.
In 2004 the Council adopted the tobacco reform that constrains partly coupled and partly decoupled payments for the tobacco producers in the period between 2006 and 2009. The reform allows a relatively long transitional period because the partly coupled aid can run until 2009. But we have seen - as you have rightly said - Member States that chose to decouple totally from 2006 when the reform entered into force.
The 2004 reform also included the transfer of a percentage of the tobacco aid for the years 2006 and 2007 from the tobacco producers to the Tobacco Fund. The Commission proposal prolongs the transfer of a percentage from the tobacco aid to the Tobacco Fund until the calendar year 2009.
I very much welcome the support for the transfer of part of the tobacco aid into the Community Tobacco Fund. Your report correctly stresses the major importance for the European public of the measures carried out by this fund, aimed at promoting information initiatives on the damage that tobacco can cause.
However, your request to prolong the transitional period until 2012 poses a huge problem. Such an extension of the transitional partly coupled regime is totally against the philosophy of what the Commission will propose tomorrow in its communication on the 'health check', which is moving towards more decoupled payment, to give the farmers the freedom to produce what the market wants.
So far as I have been informed, those Member States that decided from the very beginning to decouple totally the payment to tobacco producers did so because it was more profitable for the farmers to leave the sector - perhaps because of the quality of the tobacco, it was more difficult to get a decent price.
It was also agreed in 2004 that 50% of the Community support to the tobacco sector would go into the rural development measures. This will start in the budget year 2011 and go, as an additional Community support, to tobacco-producing regions. It is important to note that it is earmarked for the tobacco-producing regions. On that basis, a yearly amount of EUR 484 million has already been included in the rural development programmes for the 2007-2013 period for those Member States that are covered by the tobacco reform.
Therefore I am quite sure that it can come as no surprise that I cannot propose a prolongation of the transitional partly coupled regime, because of the agreement supported by all tobacco-producing Member States when this package on Mediterranean products was agreed in 2004. However, I am looking forward to a very animated, interesting discussion tonight.
draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Budgets. - (PL) Madam President, Commissioner, subsidising tobacco production while at the same time combating the smoking of tobacco products has been a subject of controversy for many years. However, the Community Tobacco Fund, which presently takes up 5% of tobacco aid, serves to finance research on countering the effects of smoking, propaganda campaigns and the training of tobacco producers with a view to conversion to other production.
I am the draftsman of the Budget Committee's opinion on Mr Berlato's report. The continued financing of the Community Tobacco Fund for the next two years is most appropriate, but it is questionable that the reasons for its existence will disappear after that period, since we know people smoke and will go on smoking. They will smoke whether we in Europe produce tobacco or not. The problem will not disappear even if we stop subsidising tobacco producers. The fund must therefore continue to exist. The only thing that can be changed is the way it is financed.
Madam President, I am glad we have the Commissioner here today, for I believe she is a very fair-minded person. Allow me to explain.
First of all, let me point out to my colleague in the Committee on Budgets that we are against smoking and are in favour of a large-scale anti-smoking campaign. However, if people continue to smoke and there is a corresponding demand for tobacco, we do not need to import it from third countries. Let us produce it in Europe.
I congratulate Mr Berlato on his report and fully endorse it. I request that funding should continue from the Community Tobacco Fund. We farmers have gladly accepted the 1% increase in the rate of deduction that goes into the anti-smoking public information fund, Commissioner, although this is money that is taken away from us. We gladly accept this. We ask of you, however, that the tobacco status quo should obtain until 2013.
Commissioner, you are a very fair-minded person. Why should tobacco growers alone be discriminated against? We therefore request that this should be revoked, and that the status quo should obtain until 2013. Furthermore, as you know, tobacco growers in all countries, especially in my own country, are the poorest of our farmers; they often come from the poorest, most degraded regions, where in many cases nothing else can be grown. If we stop this regime and discontinue the aid, these regions will fall prey to desertification and environmental degradation.
I therefore request that the status quo continue to obtain in line with Mr Berlato's report, his amendments and my own. Knowing that you are a fair-minded person, Commissioner, I believe we can count on your support for our proposal.
on behalf of the PSE Group. - (ES) Madam President, thank you very much, Commissioner, for your presence here. I was talking to the President of my region who has a high opinion of you, and I reaffirm that here today.
Doesn't this conflict with the reference to Berlato in the final paragraph?. Or have I missed the point?
I am speaking on my own behalf and on behalf of my Group's shadow rapporteur, Mrs Rosa Miguélez, in support of Mr Berlato, because his seems to be the most rational position.
Mr Berlato's report deals exclusively with the Community Tobacco Fund, the Community Fund to combat smoking. He asks for more time and more money for this campaign. Therefore, even Members who are against premiums for tobacco should vote for this report, because it aims to extend the time and scope for the fight against tobacco.
However, the word tobacco arouses such strong feelings among many Members of this Parliament that they become confused. They confuse the Community Tobacco Fund with the community premiums and say we are asking to continue the premiums. This is not true. We are talking about the situation of the Fund until 2013.
They confuse production with consumption. The problem in Europe is not production. Europe produces very little tobacco. Europe's problem is the consumption of tobacco imported from outside Europe.
They confuse tobacco with smoking. It is like confusing alcohol with alcoholism. The plant, which is an agricultural crop, has many uses, including medicinal, whereas smoking is an illness.
If they want to eradicate consumption, they should target their attacks much more on imports, manufacturing, advertising and the massive tobacco industry as a whole, rather than on the poor workers in my country, who only account for 5% of the tobacco smoked in Europe.
Finally, Commissioner, we are not funding tobacco for the sake of it, we are funding tobacco because it creates a lot of jobs, not only among tobacco producers, but throughout the districts concerned. In fact, many tobacco producers want to stop producing because they will earn more without working. However, the districts in question will go under if they lose these thousands of jobs for women and immigrants, as has happened in other areas of Europe.
They are only asking for time, time to reorganise their farms.
Commissioner, thank you very much for your patience and I hope that you will extend your hand not to Mr Berlato, but to the workers who are looking at this Parliament in the hope it will not display double standards. I hope that nobody here will confuse what they would like to see with the real situation, and I also hope that nobody here will put their own interests above the interests of these humble people.
on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group. - (DE) Madam President, Commissioner, I have the impression that the aim here is, as they say in Westphalia, to throw a sausage after a side of bacon, meaning to throw out a herring to catch a whale. In other words, the Tobacco Fund is being used in an attempt to safeguard the coupling of the tobacco premium until 2013. The Fund, which - as we all know - is also used to finance education on the harmful effects of smoking, was introduced here in Parliament to support the actual tobacco premiums, because there was strong opposition to smoking from a majority of MEPs, and many were asking how we could support tobacco-growing, given the dangers of smoking.
I have always been a supporter of the tobacco premium, because I believe that the two things are unrelated, but then we should not be hypocritical and undertake to do something to combat smoking if we are actually pursuing a different aim, namely the preservation of the premium. The issue at stake here is not the preservation of the premium; it is essentially a matter of the coupled premium, the objective being to prevent decoupling. We always act as if decoupling would deprive tobacco-growers of the premium. We know that this is not true, and indeed we have already discussed the whole issue in connection with cotton. Businesses will continue to receive payments; the only difference is that they will no longer be obliged to grow tobacco, and I believe that makes good sense.
I remember a trip to northern Greece with the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development when we visited the poorest of the poor. We saw the impoverished regions, but they were not poor because of decoupling, which had not been introduced yet, but because the tobacco industry was not paying growers in those regions a fair price for their tobacco and was even taking advantage of the premiums paid at that time to push prices so low that tobacco-growers were left with nothing at all from their premiums. We found that incredible at the time, and we wondered why the growers in that region, who grew spice tobacco, which is used throughout the world as a speciality tobacco in cigarette blends, did not receive sufficient payment to be able to make a living from tobacco cultivation alone, regardless of premiums.
If tobacco is no longer grown in some regions as a result of decoupling or in some countries where complete decoupling of tobacco aid has been effected, this does not mean that there are no alternatives in those regions but that growers cannot cover the cost of growing tobacco. What is therefore needed here is a showdown with the tobacco industry so that they start at long last to pay growers a decent price.
I believe it would be better, Commissioner, to leave education about smoking to others, for we in the European Union have done enough educating, and to channel these funds into rural development and into diversification measures for these poor regions instead. Moreover, these resources should be topped up to create other jobs in these regions besides those in tobacco production.
on behalf of the UEN Group. - (PL) Madam President, rarely do decisions debated in this House have such serious consequences for such a large number of people. The issue before us today is the existence or non-existence of tobacco producers in Europe. Tobacco production is the livelihood of around 120 000 farmers and, including seasonal workers, it employs almost 400 000 people in both old and new Member States. The case of Greece has already shown that the so-called reform of the tobacco sector in fact means its liquidation. It is a death sentence for 120 000 farms, mostly small family holdings. I know such tobacco farms in Poland, but we find them here too, on the outskirts of Strasbourg. We are talking about a catastrophe for people who have devoted their lives to the production of tobacco. In the name of what should they be deprived of their livelihood? The liquidation of tobacco production will not stop people smoking. They will smoke cigarettes made from imported tobacco. This reform will help no one and harm many.
I therefore fully support Mr Berlato's report, which rightly comes to the defence of tobacco producers, and add my voice to those of Mr Glavakis and Mr Cercas.
Madam President, tobacco growers are being cruelly persecuted, as the anti-smoking campaign is tantamount to an anti-tobacco policy. As a result, tobacco grown in the EU is considered unhealthy, while imported tobacco is not. This is inconsistent, unscientific and unfair. The results of this policy are well known: despite the campaigns, smoking is on the increase, whereas production in the EU is in sharp decline. Jobs are being lost, tens of thousands of small and medium-sized tobacco growers are being ruined, yet tobacco imports have risen to more than EUR 1.2 billion a year.
Tobacco growing in Greece has declined by 73%. Ever-increasing numbers of tobacco growers are unemployed. Whole areas are being abandoned because no alternative crops are grown there.
We consider it essential to repeal the regulation transferring 50% of direct aid to the second pillar from 2010. All deductions from subsidies should be abolished immediately to allow tobacco growing to continue, since 70% of demand is met by imports. Subsidies should be linked to production; they should be an integral part of the guaranteed minimum prices corresponding to the production cost of each variety.
As the Berlato report contains positive elements supporting all of this, we, the MEPs of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE), will approve it.
on behalf of the IND/DEM Group. - (SV) Madam President, subsidised tobacco growing is a clear example of the double standards which characterise the EU and the European Parliament. The EU has proudly proclaimed that the fight against diseases must be prioritised and spends a few million Swedish kronor on information campaigns every year, while by the back door the EU subsidises unprofitable tobacco growers to the tune of several billion kronor per year.
According to the report, the scheme for a gradual reduction in this support would be extended until 2013. The rapporteur seeks to wash his hands of the negative consequences of tobacco consumption. The simplistic argument is that, since EU tobacco production is so small, only 4%, the effect on final consumption is negligible. What kind of reasoning is that? Is it intended to justify continued subsidies? I think that EU tobacco production is 4% too high. Besides, European tobacco is so bad that only a fraction is sold on the European market. A third is burned. The special interests of the tobacco industry have prevailed for long enough. Our people need us to face up to our political responsibilities.
Ladies and gentlemen, the last puff has a bad taste. It is time to stub out double standards. I therefore urge you to vote against the report tomorrow.
(ES) Madam President, aid to the tobacco sector will be cut by 50 % in 2010 as a result of the most recent reform. I think this is an unprecedented measure, that puts tobacco producers at a clear disadvantage compared to the rest of the Community's agricultural producers. No other agricultural sector has suffered such a drastic cut, and this will come on top of the reductions resulting from the changes in direct aid that the Council of Ministers will agree tomorrow.
I do not think it inappropriate to quote some figures about this sector. At least 80% of European tobacco is produced in disadvantaged regions. In Extremadura, in Spain, where most Spanish production is concentrated, the reform affects 20 000 families, with an annual turnover that represents 26% of the total value of the region's agricultural production.
Moreover, tobacco in Spain is concentrated in small units, with a high level of female employment, on the farms and in the industry as a whole. Furthermore, we should not forget that the European Union only produces 5% of the world's tobacco and imports 70% of the tobacco it consumes. The disappearance of Community tobacco production therefore will not in any way ensure a reduction in consumption.
Or "the only solutions presented so far have been to change the crop”?
The CAP's so-called health check is an ideal moment to reflect about the consequences this decision might have for regions like Extremadura, where a significant social and economic community has developed around this crop and where the only solution presented so far is to change the crop.
In addition, reform of this sector also contradicts the expectations of the Community agricultural sector as a whole, because the Community has guaranteed its stability until the end of the period covered by current financial planning in 2013.
The report adopted by the Committee on Agriculture, which favours an extension of the Community Tobacco Fund, takes into consideration consumers' interests while at the same time questioning the validity of the decision to cut aid to farmers, because the Fund is itself financed by deductions from direct aid to farmers.
(NL) Tobacco kills about half a million European citizens a year. Even amongst non-smokers there are 19 000 deaths a year from passive smoking.
How do I know that? That is the message in the television adverts the European Union itself is having shown in all 27 Member States as part of a big anti-smoking campaign. Altogether we have earmarked EUR 18 million for it, but that sum is a drop in the ocean compared with the subsidies the European Union pays tobacco growers every year. This year Brussels is still spending EUR 320 million on them. Three years ago it was still nearly EUR 1 thousand million.
Is it not very strange that we are trying to combat smoking and at the same time are funding tobacco production with European tax revenue? Furthermore, this continued funding goes against the whole idea behind our agricultural policy reforms, which is that we have to abolish production subsidies. Mr President, the proposal by the European Commission to continue support to the Tobacco Fund in 2008 and 2009 has my full support, but the fund cannot be used as an excuse to continue tobacco subsidies in 2013. Although I have enormous respect for my fellow Members' arguments, I believe in this case that public health must come first.
(IT) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would particularly like to compliment the rapporteur on his excellent work. This report achieves a twofold objective: it reinforces measures to combat smoking by extending the financing of the European Tobacco Fund whilst at the same time bringing the tobacco sector into line with the other CMOs which will naturally terminate with the 2012 financial year.
However, the fight against smoking must not mean the end of tobacco growing in Europe, because Europe is the world's leading importer of raw tobacco and relies for over 75% of its requirements on third countries, to the benefit of tobaccos often produced without any guaranteed health controls. Any cancellation of the aid would lead merely to the end of production, to increased imports and would have no effect on smoking.
(NL) It is difficult to say what is more absurd, that the European Union subsidies tobacco growing, or that Europe then uses part of the subsidies for a fund that discourages tobacco smoking. Totally hypocritical measures like that are precisely the reason why the EU has so little credibility with the public. The argument that the EU produces relatively little tobacco is beside the point. There is still one EU-subsidised cigarette in every packet. That cigarette is then in any case of such inferior quality that we do not want to smoke it in Europe and we dump it somewhere else.
The tobacco subsidy must not be continued, as this Parliament wishes. Part of the subsidies must also not be used for anti-smoking campaigns as a fig leaf, as the Commission wishes. I have had enough of these subsidies. They must simply be abolished immediately.
(PL) Mr President, Commissioner, Mr Berlato's report deals with a combination of health and agricultural issues. Raising the level of funding from 5% to 6%, together with the proposed extension of the system to the years 2009-2012, considerably increases the resources assigned to the Fund - by as much as EUR 81 million. Many farmers and organisations fully support the proposed regulation. Both Polish and European tobacco producers expect the adoption of the report to result in the extended operation of the Community Tobacco Fund, which is essential for public health, and in maintenance of the tobacco production sector for Europe's 100 000 tobacco growers.
The proposed regulation makes it possible to maintain, without any additional budget expenditure, a system of subsidies that partly benefits the production of tobacco and thus avoids discrimination against tobacco growers compared with other agricultural sectors.
It is essential, Commissioner, that we resume the very important debate on the future of tobacco production in Europe as from tomorrow, in connection with presentation of the health check.
(PL) Mr President, today's debate is one in which the arguments of agricultural producers conflict with those of groups campaigning for the health of European society. But will European society be healthier for smoking tobacco of clearly inferior quality imported from third countries? If we destroy our own production, we shall be importing not 70%, but 100%. We also have to consider whether discrimination against farmers who grow tobacco, rather than helping to develop our rural areas, will not lead, in certain regions of the European Union, to even greater economic collapse and the growth of unemployment. Obviously, we can then pump in financial aid for the unemployed, since we are so rich that we can afford to destroy our own agriculture for the benefit of agriculture in the Far East, which we are obliged to support in order to combat unemployment there.
I fully support Mr Berlato's report.
(NL) European farmers who grow tobacco should not receive a single cent from the EU for it. Obviously tobacco subsidies have been a huge source of revenue for farmers for many years, a sort of social security policy that did not deserve the name. However, tax revenue should not, on principle, be spent on unhealthy products. Hence there is only one choice as far as subsidies are concerned: abolish them.
The proposal in the Berlato report is a ridiculous attempt to get tobacco subsidies extended until at least 2012. That should not happen, and there is another reason for this. Developing countries see it as totally unfair that European tobacco should be subsidised. It is unfair competition with poor farmers and it is directly counter to European Union development policy, a classic example of the way in which one policy area can cut into another.
Encourage European farmers to grow crops that now bring in a high price, such as grain, which is badly needed. Show solidarity, though, and let the tobacco subsidies go up in smoke, for the sake of public health and for the sake of cohesion in European policy for the development of the poorest countries in the world. That is solidarity.
(IT) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there are certain facts which are undisputed. First, it is certain that complete decoupling lowers production. Second, even if we stop growing tobacco in Europe, it does not mean that the reduction in European tobacco cultivation will reduce the smoking population. Third, we are potentially condemning hundreds and thousands of people to hunger without achieving a concrete result.
I therefore believe that, on the one hand, the aid to tobacco growers should be used to explain the harmful effects of smoking to consumers - and from this point of view the money should obviously come from the aid - and at the same time we should put tobacco growers in a position to slowly quit cultivation, allowing them the necessary time to withdraw from the whole sector. I therefore consider that we should vote in favour of the Berlato report.
(PL) I wish to make three points in this discussion. First, the idea of decoupling payments for production is frequently repeated by the European Commission. It is an approach that obviously reduces Europe's agricultural production. Commissioner Fischer Boel repeated the idea once again today, this time with reference to tobacco production.
Second, we have to remember that tobacco growing, in both old and new Member States, takes place on small family farms in the most poorly developed regions. Liquidation of this production will reduce the possibilities for development in these regions and threaten the existence of small farms.
Third and last, it is true that tobacco growing is controversial, but restricting it in Europe means a growth in tobacco exports from third countries. Mr Berlato has told us that tobacco imports reached EUR 1.2 billion last year.
I hope the European Commission will take these warnings into account in defining its position.
(EL) Mr President, I applaud my fellow Members who have shown such sensitivity on the issue of smoking. I believe that all of us without exception are against smoking, but, my friends, let me point out an essential difference: smoking and tobacco growing are entirely separate. Let us provide as much money as we can, speak on this issue as much as possible, and take all the action we can to persuade our fellow Members and fellow citizens not to smoke. Given that people will smoke regardless, I cannot understand why we have to import tobacco rather than grow it here ourselves. Now let me appeal to you as environmentalists. Tobacco is a crop that requires little water, little fertiliser and few pesticides; it is grown in infertile soils by poor farmers. I am sure that the environmentalist in you and also your humanity, even in those of you who speak against smoking and link smoking with tobacco growing, will lead you to change your minds. Associating smoking with tobacco growing is like confusing our famous wine production with alcoholism. Should we stop producing wines because of alcoholism?
Member of the Commission. - Mr President, thank you to all of you that have contributed to this debate and thank you once again for supporting the prolongation of the transfer into the Tobacco Fund.
I am of course aware that discussions on tobacco policies are a very sensitive issue and I can tell you that I experienced that recently during my visit to Greece in April. I must say clearly as well that the prolongation of the tobacco fund is not an invitation to reopen the tobacco reform from 2004, and I think you have to be aware that this reform is a done deal. And I think you have to take into account as well that this reform was supported by all the tobacco-producing Member States. Therefore, it would be a bit difficult to restart the whole discussion again.
I think it is important as well to remember that we are not stopping subsidies to the tobacco producers. We are actually continuing to pay the highest direct payment or the highest subsidies, more than anyone else in the agricultural sector. No other crop is actually receiving that high a direct payment.
So we will stick to the fact that we will decouple in 2009, and from 2011 we will transfer into the rural development policy.
Therefore, instead of wasting or using a lot of time and lots of efforts against what was agreed in the Council in 2004, I think Member States and tobacco producers, the whole tobacco sector, should look into the rural development policy instead and see what the possibilities are, because lots of money will be available for restructuring, for trying a different business in the agricultural sector.
With a bit of imagination - although I know that you cannot produce everything in these areas - I am sure that a solution could be found if there is cooperation between Member States, the tobacco sector and the tobacco producers, to try to find viable solutions for these areas, in the period after 2011 as well.
rapporteur. - (IT) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank the Commissioner and all those Members who have spoken. I would point out that, as far as the future of the European tobacco sector is concerned, a formal request was made recently to the Commission, signed by the Ministers of almost all the tobacco-producing Member States, including those countries which have opted for complete decoupling, and the new Member States, for the Commission to put forward a proposal for a regulation extending the current system of support for tobacco production until the year 2013. That matter must be addressed as part of the discussions currently in progress on the CAP 'health check'.
I will conclude, Mr President, by inviting my fellow Members - who at first glance might appear to be less interested in a measure which only involves a deduction from aid to growers in five old Member States, which have maintained the aid partly coupled - to reflect on the fact that the use of those resources and the Fund's information initiatives will continue to be aimed at benefiting the health of all citizens of the Union.
I would also like to point out that perhaps there is a fundamental misconception here: this report is not concerned with and takes no decision on prolonging aid payments to tobacco producers; it is merely a question of voting on a report which advocates prolonging the financing of the Community Tobacco Fund. As regards prolonging the aid payments, that is a decision to be taken later, but that is not the subject of this report which, as I said, is about prolonging the financing of the Community Tobacco Fund and not about prolonging aid payments to tobacco producers in the immediate and foreseeable future.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Tuesday, 20 May 2008.